


Inkstained Hell: Before Hell Began

by nyacat39



Series: Inkstained Hell [1]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Body Horror, Minor OC in later chapters, Violence and Death in coming chapters, lost ones, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-13 08:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14745182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyacat39/pseuds/nyacat39
Summary: Before the studio became a hellish landscape, it was just Joey Drew Studios. But... What exactly happened to make it become the Inky, black abyss it is now?





	1. Chapter 1: A Day Like Any Other

The setting sun was hidden behind fluffy white clouds as the crew at Joey Drew Studios were hard at work in order to try and finish their latest project, Animating a brand new “Bendy” short to premier in theaters. Well… try being the keyword as many problems continued to arise throughout out the day thanks to a constant problem in the form of a large machine that seemed to spread out through the entire building.

The pipes dripped often and new ones would spring up to replace the old ones, leaving the maintenance crew in a near constant sour mood as they would think they had JUST FIXED EVERYTHING, only to have something new break and the cycle starts all over again. At one of these recently reopened leaks were two men, dressed in the standard uniform all members of the maintenance crew had.

“Alright Wally, hand me that wrench.” The oldest of the two, a man who seemed to be in his late forties and had a small amount of grey already popping up in his dark brown hair. His face was stern and tired looking with a five o’clock shadow, highlighting some of the wrinkles that were beginning to make their appearance on his face, he also had ink splattered on both his clothing and hair. The man was looking down at a younger, lankier looking man in his early to mid twenties that had curly red hair that poked out of a newsboy cap. The younger man had freckles on his face and a little side bag that had tools at his side.

“Yeah, yeah I got it.” Wally sighed and ruffled through the bag before grabbing the needed tool and handed it to the older man. As the older man began tightening some of the bolts, slowly closing the leak, Wally’s fingers drummed on his arm for a moment before he spoke up again. “Ya know Thomas, I honestly don’t get why Joey insists on keeping this thing.”

“Here we go again…” Thomas quietly muttered to himself, not taking his eyes off his work but also bracing himself for what he was expecting to come.

“No seriously, the animators barely even use, what? More than three buckets of the stuff compared to the studio flooding amounts it makes. Who even NEEDS that much ink for anything? Then there’s the constant noise. I’m honestly surprised all the music that’s recorded doesn’t pick any of it up from how loud it can get! And do not even get me started on all the leaks! By god I swear, some days I’m lucky to go home without ink on my-”

“That wraps that up.” Thomas interrupted as he started to climb down his little step ladder and give the wrench back to his red haired companion. Wally blinked in surprise, glancing down at the wrench, to the retreating form of the older maintenance worker.

“Oh, uh, right…” Wally put the wrench away and awkwardly followed after Thomas. “So... Where we going for the next round?”

“You are going down to check the Music Department, and then I’ll meet with you to check the toy department… I’m taking a smoke break kid.” The red haired man physically stopped at these words, his eyes going wide for just a moment before he scrambled to catch up to the brunette.

“Whoa, hey wait. I thought you said a month ago you don’t trust me to do these rounds on my own yet.”

“What, getting cold feet now? Thought you wanted to move up from being just a cleaning boy.”

It was really no secret around the studio that the young man wanted to move up from his janitorial duties… nor was it really a secret that the red head was also not the best at his new job.

“No! I mean Yes! I mean, no I’m not getting cold feet, and yes I do wanna move up, but that doesn’t explain just WHY you’re letting me do a round or two on my own.”

“It’s been a month hasn’t it?” Thomas took a side glance to the lankier man’s face before shrugging. “Besides if ya haven’t learned even the basics of what ya need to do, then you should take your own advice and “Get outta here” or something.”

The older man put his hands into his pockets and walked off to take his smoke break, leaving the younger, less experienced maintenance worker to stand there and try to figure out what just happened.

….

Down in the Music department, a man with long dirty blonde hair sat at his desk tapping his pen on the surface. His free hand was used as a rest for his forehead, as he stared blankly at the sheet of paper in front of him, a music sheet that was devoid of notes. There were a few ink stains on the legs of his grey overalls, clearly showing he had to wade through some flooded halls, but thankfully for him, his black dress shirt did rather well at hiding any stains there might have been.

It probably didn’t help the man’s current writers block at all, that some people were walking into his office just to use the stupid pump, that was installed into his room so a few of the people could leave for the day.

 _One of these days I swear I will kill Joey fucking Drew…_ The man thought with a snarl crawling onto his face as he heard some of the people’s loud voices, as they entered his office just to use the pump… and to add some icing on the cake of intolerance that this man had for everything going on there was a constant ink drip that was going on in the corner of his deck. The loud humming of the machine itself didn’t even have to be mentioned.

“Hey there Lawrence, how you holding up today?” the blond music director, Sammy Lawrence, practically dropped his head onto his work desk at the voice of the resident Projectionist, Norman Polk. The darker skinned man stood in the doorway, having to lower his head a little to keep from hitting the top with his flat cap. In his arms were a few new film reels that he needed to test in his beloved projectors before music would be added. A dead panned look was on Norman’s face as he watched Sammy’s head drop.

“That bad huh?”

“With all these distractions and interruptions, how well can anyone hold up Norman?” Sammy groaned as he dropped his pen onto the desk and held his face in both hands. The music director felt a hand get placed on his shoulder, and looking up he saw Norman had quietly moved from the doorway. How the tall projectionist moved so quietly, Sammy would never know.

“Just gotta hang in there Lawrence. Better yet, why don’t the two of us play a bit of billiards in the break room. Might cool you down some, and get the song ideas flowing. Before we have to leave for the day and all.”

The music director glanced up to the darker skinned man, then back down to his blank music paper, then to the dripping ink on his desk before finally making up his mind and standing up from his seat.

“If you insist. Get ready to lose once again Norman.”

“Says the guy who’s lost far more games then I have,” Norman chuckled as shorter man stood up, and gave the projectionist a soft push as a quiet “Knock it off” with the beginnings of a small smirk on his face.

The two began their trek to the Music Department’s break room, pausing only once when they saw a major leak starting to fill pour down into the infirmary once again. Both men quietly winced when they hear the loud groans of the piano player Johnny, who was brought down there after he nearly threw up all over his instrument of choice.

“Think it was from Ink dripping into his lunch bag again?”

“At this point I’m willing to believe anything involving this cursed substance would be the main cause for anyone being sent there.”

“Fair enough… but you’d think they’d do better in keeping those pipes from leaking down there.”

“... I’m blaming Joey for that one.”

“You blame Mr. Drew for many things.”

“Yes but the ink machine IS his fault though.”

“Can’t really argue there.”

As the two continued their walk to the break room, they saw Wally checking some of the pipes in the main area of the department.

“Franks.” Sammy’s voice made the red haired man jump, and nearly lose his footing on the ladder he stood on. Wally turned his attention to both the Music Director and Projectionist with wide, nearly fearful eyes at the two older men.

“You okay there Wally?” Norman asked, concern being much more evident on him, while Sammy himself looked more unimpressed. Wally stood there for a moment or two before calming down enough to climb down the ladder and finally speak.

“Yeah, yeah, just gave me a fright there was all. Uh, so how ya doing Sammy? Norman?” The red haired man asked, trying to get relaxed once again.

“Well better now that the risk of a broken neck on a coworker is off the board.” The projectionist responded with a relieved sigh.

“The usual… If you’re looking for leaks to fix, go to the Infirmary before we might have to find a new pianist.” Sammy crossed his arms and held his practically patient “I hate everyone” look.

Wally cursed softly before grabbing the ladder and rushing off to the infirmary as quick as his legs could take him, leaving the other two men alone in the halls to glance off after their younger co-worker.

“Well, at least he didn’t forget anything this time.” Norman commented, only to be stopped by Sammy just pointing at the pipe where Wally was working at. Letting his gaze follow where the director was pointing Norman saw that apparently Wally had been tightening a bolt… and just forgot the wrench on it as well.

“... Never mind, it’s still the same old Wally Franks after all.”

….

The toy department was slowly winding down and closing for the day. Many of the workers were already leaving, while only two were sitting at a desk focusing on the little dolls they were making. The one doing most of the work was a man in his thirties with messy brown, wavy hair and a freshly shaved face, unlike many others in the studio his outfit was a much more casual look with only a vest to attempt to look more professional. The other was a young woman somewhere in her mid twenties to early thirties. Her long curly brown hair was tied up in an attempt to make a bun but seemed to fall short in a few areas, going down onto her more olive colored skin. She wore a simple little, short green dress with a little white sash that had small little ink stains on it.

“Hey Shawn…” The woman spoke up in a soft voice, guilt clear on her face as well. The man next to her let out a small hum to let her know he was listening as he was sewing a crooked smile onto a Bendy doll. “Do you think… me taking up a voice acting role was a good idea?”

“Well it just means you’re moving on up in life Allison. Better than just making dolls that either no one wants, or everyone wants all day long.” Shawn spoke, his voice at it’s usual loud volume and irish accent making the irritation in his voice much more prominent.

“... even… even if it might have hurt someone?”

“With this economy? I don’t be seeing the big deal on it really. You just want to make a little extra money to add in the pocket, lots of people do that to even get where they are now. Hell be glad Mr. Drew is able to give everyone stable jobs at all.”

“Yeah… yeah I guess…” Allison sighed and looked down to the little Boris the wolf doll she had been putting the final touches onto.

“Now if you _really_ wanna talk about something that’s not a good idea, I’d say it would be making all them Angel whatchamacallits and being unable to sell enough to put a dent in supplies!” Shawn gestured to the many shelves that had far more Alice Angel dolls then both Boris and Bendy lining their many rows and spaces.

“Her name’s Alice…”

“Yes that, but still! This little lass don’t be getting any love and it’s really starting to annoy me as well. Mr. Drew should really just let me melt down the overstocked amounts already, so we can make more of the devils and wolves people want.”

Allison just kept quiet and let the toy maker go on with his rant. She had worked with him long enough that it was usually for the best that he just let’s it all out in one go, then trying to talk over him and make it all the more worse. The man hardly ever got violent really, being more bark then he was bite, but he was still kinda scary, in her honest opinion, when he did get mad.

She also still didn’t have the heart to tell him that she was now technically the new voice actress for the “Angel Whatchamacallit” that he seems to rant about so often. Though then again, he might know and just decided to ignore that fact.

As he seemed to now be in a more talkative mood Allison retreated back into her mind with the feelings of guilt coming back to the surface. All she really wanted was to work alongside Ms. Campbell. Be a background voice or something… but instead Allison somehow upstaged the other woman and gained the lead role of the inked angel. Susie wasn't happy at all with that and Allison remembered hearing the woman break down and cry in the restrooms afterwards.

 _I'm so, so sorry Susie…_ The brunette thought to herself as she mentally heard the other woman's sobs once again. All the heartbreak and sorrow were as clear as the day she first heard them.

“Lass, hey now are you alright?”

Shawn’s question snapped the guilt ridden woman out of her thoughts and back into the real world. Glancing up at his face Allison saw all the concern on her fellow brunette’s face.

“It’s… It’s nothing Shawn…”

“I be thinking it’s something if you’re all tearing up like that now.”

The curly haired woman’s eyes widened a little bit as she felt her face with one of har hands, finding her cheeks were a little wet from tears she didn’t even realize she was shedding. Shawn quietly watched as the woman tried in vain to clear her face from her tears and muttering out soft apologies. He drummed his fingers on his desk for a moment before something slowly came to mind. Pushing his chair away from his work desk for a moment, the toy maker began to look around the room for a moment.

“You know what I be thinking lately, Allison?” The irish man questioned, looking through a few of the shelves for a moment. “I be thinking, “why does Mr. Drew keep having us do the same faces all the time for these dolls?” and really? Who only has the one expression their whole lives? Not I that’s for sure.” Not finding whatever he was looking for on the current shelves present, Shawn went to a lever and pulled it down to cycle through them.

Allison was drawing a blank on what her former boss was getting at. All she knew was that sometimes he liked to mess with Joey Drew, and sneak a few Bendy dolls with crooked smiles into the masses of normal ones. She was also not really getting any hints on just how this was an attempt to cheer her up… that is if this really was one. Shawn has always been pretty hard for her to read.

“Well then, with these ideas going into my head I started thinking;” The toy maker flipped the switch once again, still not finding whatever he was looking for among the many dolls that lined the shelves. “How would one make them more “lifelike” in a way? The answer is actually pretty simple my dear lass!”

The man’s eyes seemed to land on what he was looking for and picked up what appeared to be an Alice Angel doll. Shawn practically dived back into his chair after getting his hands onto the doll, only to hand it over to the upset woman and gently take the Boris doll from her hands.

Allison looked down at the doll and was surprised to see instead of the “Cute, charming” expression the doll would usually have, it had one eye looking more like it was closed in a wink, the smile wasn’t thin and small, no it was showing some teeth in the same style as the bendy dolls but still a little smaller than they usually are… as well as being a little more off center making it seem more like a toothy smirk.

“You shape them out and fix them up!” The toy maker stated with pure pride and a large smile gracing his face as he watched Allison take in his latest work.

The voice actress was practically stunned into silence as she looked at the doll. Alice, the character herself, wasn’t known to be rather mischievous. Well… honestly there wasn’t too much personality to her aside from being a “foil” to the ever lovable Bendy that Allison knew of yet. However, as she looked over the careful craftsmanship of the “messed up doll” Allison couldn’t help but see a little more in the simple little character. More potential for what could be.

“So… the same… probably goes for voice actors as well?” the pieces had slowly come together in her mind as she spoke.

“There ya have it my dear lass! Now I’m not entirely sure on how them voice actors usually work or anything, but I do know that a little change never hurt none!” Shawn grinned as he leaned back in his chair.

 _It really hurt Susie though…_ Allison thought glumily for a moment, but was also heavily focusing on the doll in her hands. A small smile slowly made itself known on her face while looking at the small doll, before handing it back to the toy maker himself.

“Thanks Shawn.”

“Ah it be no problem, you always worked really hard ‘round here anyway. ‘Sides, why dontcha keep this little Angel? Not like she’s gonna see outside of this place anytime soon anyways.”

Allison’s eyes widened a little before a small smile crossed her face as she held the little doll close.

….

Inside the Music Department’s break room, a young woman sat at a small table with a glass of water and a defeated look in her eyes. Her black, straight hair was just past her chin, with bangs that mostly settled over the right side of her head and looked recently cut all around. Her grey coat was closed up and had a few ink stains here and there, but was also keeping a cute little baby blue dress safe from the harsh liquid.

 _How could they have just, done that to me? Handing over the role I was meant to play to some… some nobody?!_ The woman, Susie, thought to herself anger crossing her face for a brief moment before tears started to crawl down her cheeks as more depressive thoughts began to replace the angry ones.

“... Susie?” The voice of Sammy Lawrence drew her attention away from her mind. The blond haired man had just walked into the room with Norman at his side. Both men were looking at her with great concern. Susie just looked at them for a moment before looking away, her tears still falling down her face.

“Susie… hey now, it’s gonna be-” Sammy tried to consol the woman, his voice surprisingly gentle, as he walked over to her side and attempted to put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Stop it…” Susie interrupted, moving away from the comforting hand of the man who helped her get her start. She clenched her eyes shut, letting more tears fall down her face. Her arms wrapped tight around herself as she practically drowned in self pity.

“Susie, please… I’m sorry-”

“Sorry doesn’t help anything Sammy!”

The music director flinched a little from the outburst and a little guilt soon found its way into his heart. Norman walked over and tapped Sammy on the shoulder before motioning him to move aside for a bit. Quietly following the instructions, Sammy backed off to the closest corner of the room and watched as Norman kneeled down by the table.

“Hey now Ms. Campbell.” Norman spoke softly, keeping out of reach and making no moves to attempt to even place a comforting hand on the distraught woman.

“Leave me alone Norman…”

“Now, I can’t do that sadly. You clearly need someone to help at the moment. I know, I may not be the best person to understand what your going through… and Sammy might not be much of a help either in all honesty.” At the mention of his name the music director shot the projectionist a small glare from his position, but kept quiet. “Neither of us really know what you’re going through right now… but we’re willing to try and help if you’re willing to talk to us.”

“... just leave me alone… please…” Susie’s voice was far to soft that it was barely heard at all. Her tears however had actually lessened a bit, and she was just sniffling a bit now.

“... Susie,” Sammy spoke up once again, not leaving his spot for the voice actress’s own comfort. “This is about… Allison isn’t it?”

Silence was the only answer he received, but that was really all he needed after all to confirm his suspicions.

“Joey had no right to change you out like that… but sadly in the end he’s the one who apparently makes the final decisions in the long run… doesn’t he?” Sammy finally walked over to Susie’s side, Norman politely making room for him and surprisingly Susie didn’t react this time. Not even when Sammy finally placed a comforting hand over one of her own.

“Give him some time. Knowing that guy he’ll realize the mistake he made, and then come crawling back to you to fix it. If not, I’m sure there’s something we can do to convince him of the mistakes he made… hopefully about the blasted machine as well.”

As Sammy spoke, Susie slowly loosened her grip on her arms and then readjusted it to hold onto Sammy’s own hand. A small smile slowly coming onto her face as the director did his best to make her feel better. Honestly, this was a side of Sammy that she loved to see the most.

“Or we could do it the way you usually want and risk our jobs.” Norman snickered a bit, getting a small chuckle out of Susie as well while Sammy made a small hum as if actually considering it.

“As much as I would love to voice Alice again, I highly doubt it’s worth losing my job just to get it back.” Susie finally laughed, her mood being lifted and depressive thoughts pushed to the back of her mind… leaving only one last negative thought that fluttered around. How would she make Joey Drew pay for this?

….

Thomas looked up at the darkening sky outside the studio as he took a long drag from his cigarette. The sun was almost completely down and he could see the darkness beginning to make itself known. As he gazed at the scenery, the handy man couldn’t help but think of all the overtime he was pretty much putting in for the ridiculous machine his boss insisted that they have.

“Seems like you are going to be having another long night at this rate.” A familiar voice sounded off beside him. One glance from Thomas confirmed who the well dressed man was to the handy man of the studio.

“Yeah… and I know for a fact I’m not paid enough for this shit Grant…”

Grant, an average sized man in his early forties with slicked back black hair, a pair of square glasses rested on his face in front of eyes that looked far too tired, simply nodded along and pulled out a match and cigarette of his own.

“You and me both Conner… Joey is once again being beyond unreasonable with the budget I’ve been trying to push onto him.” Grant sighed with irritation and rubbed a hand through his hair. “Honestly with all his spending I'm surprised we haven't hit the red yet.”

“Seriously?” Thomas looked to the accountant with surprise on his face.

“I've done all the math, done it twice and thrice to be sure… but it all still doesn't add up on just **how** we haven't used up all the money yet. That’s also factoring in the costs of the theme park that Mr. Drew insists on building, as well as the Ink Machine as well. ”

Both Thomas and Grant took took a short drag before slowly blowing it all out, the handyman blowing the smoke upward as he tried to figure out how that was possible, while the accountant had his smoke blown more downward in agitation.

“Think Joey has some secret funds he's tapping into for half this crap?” Thomas suggested only to have Grant shake his head.

“While it is possible, I honestly don't think that's the case with Mr. Drew. He’s either making more money from these cartoons then he’s letting on, sneaking in and fudging the results or even has some sort of contributors-” Grant paused whatever he was going to say next as both he and Thomas felt drops of water hit their skin. Looking up the clouds seemed to have turned a much darker grey then they had been not to long ago.

“The paper didn't say anything about rain today…” The accountant muttered, knowing that before he came outside there wasn’t any hint it was even going to begin… let alone anything in the papers even mentioning that rain might be possible.

“Well, papers have been wrong before.” Thomas sighed before snuffing his cigarette out, and turning back around to go back inside. “Guess now’s a good as time as any to get back to work. Can’t leave Franks alone for to long.”

Grant watched as Thomas walked back inside. The accountant glanced back up at the sky and seeing that dark clouds were covering the night’s sky, faster than normal. Taking one last drag from his cigarette before snuffing it out finally as the rain started to get a little heavier.

 _Guess the weather decided to throw us all for a loop today…_ Grant thought to himself as he turned to go back inside to finish up the last of his work today.

…

Somewhere inside the studio, candle light flickered in a circular pattern as a figure sat before it with their hands clasped as if in prayer and quietly chanting in a strange language.

Within the center of the circle a small puddle of ink began to form as the chant slowly grew a little louder. It continued to do so until the final words were said and the Ink puddle began to ripple and move a little on its own. The figure smiled at the results in front of them and slowly reached down in front of their seat, grabbing one small candle that, unlike the other red ones, was pure white.

“With this… let's make Dreams come true.”

The candle was blown out and the Ink puddle exploded everywhere… and around the studio it wasn't the only one to do so.


	2. Chapter 2: Something Dark This Way Comes

Wally had just finished patching up the leak in the infirmary. It took him a little longer than it should have due to him forgetting his wrench for a bit, but he was finally done. Johnny didn’t look like he was going to be done losing his lunch anytime soon… but he at least looked a lot better at not having to see any more ink flowing into the room.

_ Pretty sure that’s the last of them pipes. Now I just gotta get outta here and over to-  _ Wally thought to himself as he whistled a tune from the Bendy Cartoon, only for it all to be brought to an abrupt halt at the sound of pipes bursting and the horrified screams of both Johnny and a few other people that were still in the music department. The red haired young man could only stare on in both utter horror and confusion at the chaos before it seemed to click into his head that he wasn’t safe being out in the open as another pipe burst open.

“HOLY SHIT!” 

Wally tried to get out of the way but the ink pressure practically smashed the poor man’s head hard into the wall, and knocking him unconscious as the ink continued to flow. 

….

In the Break Room Sammy, Norman and Susie all heard the pipes before the screams outside.

“What in the-” Sammy started before being pushed to the ground and Susie, who quite frankly was just as confused as the Music Director, was pulled by Norman, just as the pipe in their room bursted open and began filling the room with ink. 

“Oh my god!” Susie shreeked. Sure she was used to leaks happening, but a pipe had never bursted open before… or if it had it was never that violent in it’s bursting.

“What the hell?!” Sammy shouted, arms instinctively shooting above his head as the ink poured down from above.

“Get moving!” Norman shouted, pushing both Susie and Sammy to the door, thankfully not hit by the intense pressure but getting a good chunk of ink stained onto their backs, legs and some of their hair. Thankfully able to get the door, all three piled out before making a mad dash down the now flooding halls.

“What the hell is Joey even paying the maintenance crew to even do if this is going to happen?!” Sammy shouted in pure anger as they tried to get to the exit, only to see it completely flooded. 

“H-How are we going to get out now?!” Susie screamed as the sound of more pipes bursting happened on the floors above. The dripping of ink starting to leak through the floorboards. 

Norman looked around the department for a moment before his eyes went down to the two hallways on the right. On one hand they could try to reach Sammy’s office and drain the ink with the pump… but with the entire floor being flooded it wouldn’t really help at all, so that left only one other option.

“Upstairs! The Ink will flood us down here before the higher floors!”

Neither Sammy or Susie could complain with this idea, after all no one wanted to drown in ink. Rushing through the closest hallway to reach the stairs, Susie stopped when she noticed the knocked out Wally Franks. Glancing between the younger man and the exit that both Norman and Sammy were racing to, not seeming to notice how she had fallen behind. Taking in a deep breath, Susie made her decision and hurried over to Wally’s side and tried to help him up.

“Come on Franks!” Susie grabbed onto Wally’s torso and heaved. “Ugh! Why do you have to be so heavy for a string bean?” 

Susie began to drag Wally as best she could towards the exit. The man’s taller 5’9” frame to her above average 5’5” height made it all the more hard for her to properly carry the man. It also didn’t help that the ink was slowly getting higher and higher up her legs.

“NORMAN, SAMMY!!” 

Sammy and Norman had reached the stairs before finally noticing the voice actress wasn’t with them as they heard her call. Sammy immediately cursed and raced back, leaving Norman at the stairs glancing between the director and the stairs before giving a soft curse and following his lead.

“Give me a hand here!” Susie ordered once she saw the men come into view. Sammy paused when he saw her trying to carry Wally, wanting to tell her to leave him behind… but with the ink filling everything up to fast as well as pipes sounding like they were exploding all over he decided Arguing was a horrible idea at the moment.

“You owe me one for this Franks…” Sammy quietly muttered as he got onto the other side of Susie and helped her with carrying the younger man. The two of them together being more than enough to move a lot quicker to the exit. Norman however motioned for Susie to let him take over and as soon as he took over they were able to make it to the stairs and up them with ease.

_ God what in Heaven’s name is even going on?  _ Norman thought as he glanced down to Wally, noticing a small amount of the handyman trainee’s blood mixing with the ink. Concern grew in the dark skinned man’s heart as he thought of the horrible fates everyone else on the lower floors would be facing if it was this bad here.

….

The old lyricist Jack Fain, a quiet curly haired blonde in his mid forties, was sitting down in his usual place in the sewers, quietly relaxing despite the horrid stench that permeates the air. There were a few papers in his hands of songs Sammy had written a while back and Jack was thinking about a few lyrics to place into a few of them before he had to leave for the day.

Sure he could do this in a normal office above ground and in a place that smelled a lot better… but there was only so much he could take of people before he wanted to just crawl into a corner of social anxiety and die. So suffer through the smell and get recharged for the day.

Hearing the echoes of something going on Above ground, Jack stopped his work and looked up.

“What in the world is going on up there?”

The sound of loud banging echoed above and making the ceiling above him shake a bit. The crates on the ledge above him coming dangerously close to falling and making the man worried for his own safety now. He stood up slowly, a few of his bones popping a little as he did. He adjusted his bowlers cap once as he made his way for the exit… only for a single pipe to burst, a large amount of ink gushing out and pushing the debris and crates down and fast onto the Lyricist.

….

To say the workers of “Bendy Land” were having a good day, would be horrible liars. Being at the lowest level of the studio meant that ink was more likely to get over all of their work from the attractions to the in development Animatronics they were just starting on.

Bertram, a surprisingly very active man in his mid to late fifties with faint grey growing in his well groomed black hair, was NOT happy at all that Joey Drew’s useless Ink Machine was ruining his greatest creations. He and one of his most trusted mechanics, Lacie, a dark skinned woman with her shorter curly hair being tied up into a small pony, but failing to effect the longer bangs that fell in front of her left eye, were working on his Carousel as the ink began to drip on them from above.

“How far is Mr. Drew willing to let his studio fall and taint even my own creations?” Bertram angrily questioned as he was about to close one of the panels to the ride as the ink started to fall.

“Enough to make anyone feel the need to find a pub and drink the rest of the day,” Lacie commented as she rubbed at her head, trying to calm down an oncoming headache. It had already been a long day for the woman and it was only going to get worse if all this ink wasn’t going to be taken care of. She was slowly packing away her tools on the ground next to the ride when suddenly the sound of something overhead bursting open made her jump... even before she heard her boss’s horrific screams.

Turning quickly to where Bertram was, Lacie could only look on in horror as she saw the high pressured ink flow slammed the man into the delicate machinery. The sight of his body convulsing and his screams to be drowned out by the ink that was shoving him into the large ride and to his death.

Screaming loudly, Lacie dropped everything she had and raced from the attraction only to find more horrors going on around as more pipes bursted open, slowly drowning her fellow mechanics and killing many who were being hit by it directly into their works. Despite seeing all this, Lacie only had one thing in mind.

Run. Run and live. And so, she, like many others at the moment, ran as fast as she could to escape the rapidly increasing ink flood… and trying to block out the horrific death screams around her.

….

“WHAT THE HOLY HELL?!” Shawn screamed as a pipe bursts in the room, Allison screaming just as loudly from the sound of the pipe alone. Both were lucky to be out of the location of the pipe but instinct practically screamed for them to book it and get to a much higher up floor for safety. After all… there were pipes all over the place. Allison, who was much closer, threw a door open, but fell back with a scream as a pipe bursts open right outside at the same time.

“Other way lass!!” Shawn shouted as he helped the new voice actress up and started to lead her to the second door in the workshop. Both knew that way would be far longer to get to the stairs but from the pressure of the inkflow outside the shortcut… they were going to have to take their chances.

Racing through the halls they both knew from memory, both brunettes flinched and jumped at each pipe that burst all the way to the stairs. Knowing very well the ink would be worse down below, the duo ran up to at least find a safe location to wait everything out. After all, everyone in the studio knew that all the exits were near ink pipes as well, better to wait out for the high pressure to lower before attempting to leave the building.

“W-What about the other workers?” Allison questioned as both she and the toy maker raced up the stairs, adrenalin filling their veins the whole way up. Allison was further behind Shawn, who seemed to be skipping a few steps from how fast he was moving while she was trying to do her best to run up with her dress and heels.

“Don’t really know now do we?! I just wanna hope that it ain’t as bad as I think and they all be fine!” 

Allison couldn’t help but agree with that line of thought as they continued to climb the stairs to their highest point. With sheer luck the duo found that there was a room that wasn’t even close to the pipes, nor did it have any in them and they rushed in to finally collapse and catch their breath after slamming the door closed behind them.

They sat there for a bit, the adrenalin slowly leaving their system as they tried to relax a little more. It was short lived however as the door was soon thrown wide open once again and the duo screamed loudly as Thomas Conner strode into the room, breathing very heavily and clutching at his left arm that hung limp at his side and coated in ink, along with a good chunk of his left side.

“You… you know… given… the bullshit going… going on outside… I have… no idea… what else... I was expecting.” Thomas breathed heavily, his voice sounding like he was in clear pain.

“What in the everloving hell is going on Tom?!” Thomas quietly protested to the nickname the Irish man insisted on calling him, but it didn’t seem to do anything as Shawn continued on anyways. “Why are all the pipes springing open like kegs of spirits?! What happened to your arm?! HOW THE HELL DID THE INK PRESSURE GET THIS BAD?!”

“S-Shawn, calm down,” Allison pleaded as Shawn’s voice rose with each question. Thomas sighed however and shambled over to a chair in the room, still holding his limp arm and hissing in pain when it touched something. 

“For the majority of those questions… I have no clue.” The handyman answered as calmly as possible given his situation as well as the one going on outside. “The one about my arm though, THAT I can answer easily.”

“Well, go on then.” 

“... I think it’s pretty obvious…” Allison muttered, still trying to get her heart rate to slow down and feeling a bit of pain in her ankles from running in her heels. Shawn didn’t seem to hear her or notice the “Really?” look that Thomas was giving the toy maker at the demand.

“Pretty sure from all the ink it’s obvious Flynn.”  Shawn glanced between Thomas’s tired face to the limp arm. 

“Dislocated or broken?” The Irishman asked after a sigh, annoyance creeping into his voice from not registering the scene quicker.

“Dislocated, ain’t no bones popping out of my skin or anything.” Thomas moved his right arm with a pained hiss and both Allison and Shawn saw it did look more dislocated with how it hung. Allison kicked her heels off and hurried over to the handyman’s side.

“W-We should try to reset it!” Allison exclaimed, worry clear in her face. “Who… who knows when we can get you to a hospital after all…”

Before Thomas could say anything and either Shawn or Allison could try to help him fix his arm, a small group of people came bursting into the room, panting, covered in ink and completely out of breath… and startling the trio with their sudden arrival.

Norman, Sammy and Susie weren’t to surprised to see other people seemed to have the same idea they did, aside from carrying an unconscious coworker like Wally… but Susie couldn’t help but feel a bit of her anger rise up at seeing Allison again. The black haired woman knew that her fellow voice actress wasn’t to blame for what happened… but knowing that she was meant to replace her still did nothing to ease the growing anger at how she had been wronged. Sammy however took one look at Thomas and, despite his exhaustion from racing up far to many steps while carrying someone, looked like he was ready to fight the injured man in a pinch.

“What the hell happened to Wally?” Thomas questioned, upon seeing the younger man being carried by both Norman and Sammy.

“Better question, how pray tell did all this happen when you, and your crew are supposed to make sure something like this doesn't happen?” Sammy sneered, letting Norman walk Wally over to a chair in the room to set down carefully.

“This isn't the result of my crew slacking on their job Lawrence!” Thomas snapped, standing up quickly from his seat before hissing out a curse as the pain in his arm made itself known once again. Allison quickly shot up and had her hands gently hover over the dislocated arm, quietly trying to remind him to keep it as still as possible till they can pop it back into place.

“Oh so the Pipes are supposed to  **explode** , and  **drown** everyone in ink then. Good to know,” Sammy gave a sarcastic clap while giving Thomas a pointed glare, who returned it with a scowl and was so close to getting into Sammy’s face. Shawn was quietly getting a little excited at the scene going on before him and leaned in a little more to watch what might happen a bit closer.

“Sammy, stop it.” Susie hissed, wrapping her arms around one of Sammy’s to prevent him from the possible fight… didn’t really seem to help as Sammy seemed to be to focused on his anger at the handyman.

“Thomas wait!” Allison raised her voice in concern around the same time as Susie did, but Thomas didn’t seem to hear her… unlike someone else who decided to take over and help at least try to keep the peace that the two women were trying to do..

“Knock it off you two!” Norman shouted at the two men after he got Wally situated. For extra measure, the taller man got in between the two and held them both at his arms length from each other. Norman took a little extra care with Thomas though as he did notice the dislocated arm. The projectionist turned to Sammy first before speaking again. “Are you seriously going to start a fight with an injured man? We just barely escaped the Music Department with our lives for god's sake Sammy, and you want to go fight a man with only one good arm and is in the same situation as us?”

Norman then turned to Thomas to let his words sink into Sammy’s head for a moment, and started to address the handyman. “And don’t think you’re off the hook on this either. You need to get your arm back in place and rest. NOT getting worked up over someone who's stressed out from all the crap going on outside this room and looking to place the blame on  _ anyone  _ he could. No need to sink to his level after all.”

“Damn it lad! Way to ruin the entertainment!” Shawn groaned and, since he was sitting on the floor, flopped onto his back with a loud groan of annoyance. The toy maker got many unseen looks ranging from “Really?” to “Are you being fucking serious right now?” Though the only one not giving him any look was the unconscious Wally, who looked like he was only now starting to slowly coming back into the waking world.

“Ugh… who took one of them anvils and hit me with it?” Wally groaned as he opened his eyes for a moment before squeezing them back shut at the large pain in his head.

Needless to say, everyone in the room all knew this was going to be one long and painful wait.

….

The sound of wheels squeaking in the darkened room rang out with an eerie vibe as the figure who rolled them hummed a soft tune as they approached a desk. Fumbling around in the dark they eventually found a large box of matches. They opened it up and struck a match, once then twice till it finally lit up and the figure, a crippled man, slowly used it to relight the white candle he still held.

Once it was lit he wheeled back with ease to where the circle was and examined the center of the circle. The ink that was inside had changed from a simple puddle, to a much more complex looking, 3D map of the studio. A small smile formed as he saw little black spots appearing everywhere in the many areas of the studio.

“Now then… which ones shall have the honor of being the main cast here?”

The man hummed once again, carefully reaching out and tapping the inky model, making it open up to different floors and showing the many dark spots. Some of the spots seemed to slowly rise up a little but never formed anything more than a blob, making the wheelchair bound man frown before checking on another floor and another. Many of them had the same blobs appearing, until he stopped in one area and saw a few of the blobs forming something different.

“Hmm… Only side characters so far. No matter, this is still only the first part, and this  _ dream  _ has only just begun.”

Chucking to himself the man slowly began to relight all the other candles to begin the second part of the ritual.

….

Grant honestly couldn’t believe his luck after all the pipes burst. He somehow had got away from it with less ink on him then he expected, and was surprisingly safe within the bathroom he just dived into out of desperation. Sure some of the Ink did leak in through the crack at the bottom, but it surprisingly never went higher then his ankles. Despite this though the accountant decided to bide his time and wait till he felt more comfortable to try and leave.

_ Wonder how soaked my notepad is from all this ink…  _ Grant thought to himself before reaching into a pocket of his and pulling out a small notebook and pocket pen. Looking around for somewhere he could get more comfortable the accountant took a deep sigh and resigned himself to sitting on the toilet lid to write in his little notepad.

Numbers began to make their appearance on the blank pages he flipped to as Grant just quickly jotted them down. He might as well get a little bit of work done after all, so he was putting down some of he numbers for the finances he memorized so he could sort them out when the time came.

_ Though factoring in the costs for dealing with what just happened…  _ Grant paused in his writing. Glancing at the paper once again and the math he just did something slowly came to mind. Flipping back a ways in the small book Grant found the results of the second time he tried to figure out how Joey was paying for everything without going into the red.

_ Weren’t… Weren’t there accidents that happened a few months back as well? And some of those deaths from trying to build a location for the theme park a few years ago…  _ The accountant carefully pulled the filled pages out of the book and quickly flipped to the few blank pages he had left. Doing some calculated mental math on the costs the Studio would have had to pay to the families of the deceased, as well as the co workers that got badly injured. Grant’s eyes widened when he was barely halfway finished with the math and already things started to add up a bit.

_ We should have been at least in the red then. There were far too many for the families and the community to not notice… yet why did none of them file charges? Why did none of them get in the papers, let alone obituaries?  _ Grant looked over the math and rubbed at his head. None of this made any sense… What the hell was Joey doing? How was he keeping all these things quiet?

A loud groan and soft banging from outside the door snapped the accountant out of his thoughts.

“Hello?” Grant called out, closing his little notepad and pocketing it once again with his pen. He got no response other then more groaning. “Excuse me… Are you alright? The Door isn’t locked.”

The banging seemed to continue, no attempts to even open the door seemed to be made.

“Shawn? Is that you? I swear to god if this is a messed up joke!” Grant moved closer to the door, his heart beat increasing the closer he got and the lack of a proper response not helping at all. Opening the door to confront who he hoped was just the toy maker in one of his “Mischievous” moods, he instead found an empty hallway that was all covered in ankle high ink.

The pressure seemed to have lowered and now the pipes seemed to only have a small, steady stream flowing out of them… but what concerned Grant most was how there was no sign of any living being even being close to the bathroom’s door.

“... Shawn?”

Silence was all he was met with, and instantly Grant was once again on edge.

_ I need to get out of here.  _ The black haired accountant turned down the hall and started to make way for an exit. The ink behind him began to bubble a little around the door he had just left before following after him.

….

“Ready Thomas?” Norman asked, holding the injured man’s dislocated arm. After calming both him and Sammy down enough to not want to strangle each other on sight, Norman rolled up his sleeves and got ready to help the handyman reset his arm. 

“Just get it over with.”

“Now hang on one moment!” Shawn piped up and dug around in his vest pocket for a moment, with both Norman and Thomas looking at him in annoyance. The Irish toy maker soon pulled out a small leather strap from his pocket and gave it to Thomas. “Bite down on that before ya go through the pain lad!”

“... I’m curious on why you have this on hand, but at the same time I really don’t think I want to know.” Thomas used his good arm to take hold of the small strap and positioned it between his teeth before giving Norman a thumbs up.

Norman to his part did shoot Shawn a confused look as well, but decided not to question it like Thomas did. He soon took a deep breath before quickly popping the arm back into place, causing Thomas to bite down HARD on the leather strap and let out a restrained scream of pain.

“Anyone got something we can borrow to make a sling?!” Norman called, still holding Thomas’s arm gently at an angle. Allison quickly untied the sash around her dress, making it more loose and flowing, and handing it over to Norman.

“Thank you Ms. Pendle.” 

While they were taking care of Thomas’s arm, Susie was over in the corner helping Wally with Sammy not to far away.

“I tell ya, I’ve only been repairing these pipes for nearly two months now and ain’t no one ever tell me how to fix something like this!” Wally ranted as Susie did her best to wipe both the ink and blood from the trainee’s head with a handkerchief she carried around.

“In the year I’ve been here I’ve never heard of something like this happening…” Susie responded with a frown as she saw there was a long cut over one of the younger man’s right eye that seemed to still bleed a little. 

_ That’s going to turn into a scar for sure.  _ Susie thought, moving Wally’s matted down, ink covered hair out of the way to better assess how bad bad it was.

“Sammy, do you have anything to use for a bandage on you?” The voice actress asked, turning to the blond haired man that was giving a glare in Thomas’s general direction before being snapped out of it.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Susie sighed, while Wally flinched in pain as he reached up to feel the cut on his head.

“A bandage, or some kind of wrap. Wally needs it.”

“Oh geez, that’s bad.” Wally hissed quietly to himself as he saw the blood on his fingertips.

“I don’t carry medical supplies on me Susie. I’m not the toy maker carrying around a leather strap for some ungodly reason.” Sammy pointed out.

“He what?” Wally was so lost while Susie just gave a deep sigh.

“Then help me make  _ something  _ then… please.”

Sammy looked into her eyes for a moment, then sighed in resignation. He pushed off the wall he was leaning against and went over to her side, ripping one of his sleeves off at the shoulder as best he could. After removing the ripped off cloth, both Susie and Wally couldn’t help but stare at the surprisingly toned arm that the music director had.

_ Was… was Sammy always this muscular?  _ Susie thought, a faint hint of pink appearing on her cheeks while Wally stared in awe, not expecting the music director to have that much to him.

“You owe me a new shirt after this Franks.” The comment snapped Wally out of his awe.

“Wait, what?! Why me?!” 

Needless to say as Sammy and Wally argued, Susie was still lost in her thoughts as she began to wonder how the rest of the music director looked underneath his loose fitting shirts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun with this chapter really. And I also found I really like writing Shawn and Sammy the most.


	3. Chapter 3: Echoes in the Ink

After both Thomas and Wally were treated as best as the group could manage, Thomas, along with Allison who insisted she help keep him supported, checked outside the room for a moment and concluded that the ink flow had finally gone down to a non threatening level.

The group all soon left the room and began to slowly go back down the stairs. Looking around on some of the floors, the group of employees all winced and looked on in fear as they saw ink covered bodies of coworkers who weren't as lucky as they were. Many looked like they had drowned in the Ink, others looked like they had pieces of broken pipes lodged into them, while even more looked as if they had broken through the wooden frames that made up the studio and were killed from the sharpened wood.

“Oh my lord.” Allison breathed heavily, her hands going over her mouth and tears threatening to enter her eyes. She recognized a few from her time working in the toy department.

Susie had paled and almost looked as if she was going to lose her lunch while looking at how some of her fellow colleagues had left this world. Wally winced while rubbing at his head injury under the ripped up black sleeve, thinking about how lucky he was compared to the majority around him. Norman took a moment, and offered up a silent prayer to the heavens above that they all Rest In Peace… and that the ones who are still alive in this death house could get out safely.

“Holy hell… Mr. Drew better pay us handsomely after all this shit.” Shawn stated, trying to avoid looking at some of the workers he recognized and keep himself as calm as possible.

“Joey better also expect quite a few letters of resignation after this mess.” Sammy followed up, arms wrapped around himself and was trying to focus on anything but the bodies all around them.

“You can damn well expect mine when this is all over.” Thomas stated, his face surprisingly neutral to all the death around him. However Wally could tell Thomas was thinking about getting out of here, and going straight to a bar.

“Being completely honest, I’m pretty sure Mr. Drew is completely out of a business now.” Norman spoke up after finishing his prayers, a solemn look on his face as he spoke.

Finally reaching one of the floors of the Toy Department the group took quick notice of how… wrong everything looked now.

“Now where be all the blasted ink?”

True to Shawn’s word there wasn't as much ink covering everything like there should have been. There were a few puddles on the wooden floor and a few splatters on the walls that hadn't been there before… but aside from that you could never have guessed the pipes had blown open.

“Think it got wise enough to get outta here after causing Joey hell?” Wally asked, attempting to make a joke that only Shawn snickered at.

“Not possible kid… though I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of it fell to the lower floors.” Thomas speculated as he knelt down to get a better look at the spaces between the floorboards. Looking through at best he could he still found no ink stains that could prove that there was any ink at all on this floor.

“Great, we’re going to have to drain all the ink going down to even get out. Fantastic.” Sammy groaned, his usual sour mood seemingly getting worse as the bad news just kept pouring in. Norman placed a comforting hand on the music Director’s shoulder.

“At least we’ll still be able to leave…” Norman trailed off, glancing back to where a few of their fallen coworkers were taking their eternal rest. Sammy didn’t have to follow the Projectionist’s gaze to know what he meant. The music director just turned his gaze from Norman and down a random direction, the faint pangs of what could only be described as guilt grew… only to fade as he noticed something strange down the hall his gaze was focused on. It looked like a figure that was dragging itself across the floor slowly towards them.

“Who's over there?!” Sammy called out, getting the other’s attention down the same hall. His only answer that they all could hear was a pained groaning. Norman frowned at this before going to make his way over to the stranger to see if he could give them a hand. Allison, carrying her heels in one of her hands still, followed along with the much taller guy with her own concern for the possibly injured coworker.

“Are… Are you alright?” Allison called out, once again only getting a pained groan as her answer. Her heart hurt a bit more as she picked up the sound a little more.

“Stay where you are, we’ll come to you.” Norman followed up, both him and Allison just wanting to help as many people after this tragedy as possible.

“No, go on help every person here… not like we’re probably all sick of being in here.” Sammy muttered to himself, annoyed at the two bleeding hearts wanting to waste more time. Thomas quietly agreed, only giving a sparing glance down the hall but also not making any moves to leave without them. Out of everyone, it was actually Wally that noticed something very, very wrong before everyone else. Something that made the red haired young man go very pale.

“That… that guy doesn’t have legs!”

Norman and Allison were barely halfway to where the injured “Person” was crawling from when they stopped at Wally’s words. Susie glanced to the terrified young man with a questioning brow.

“Are you sure?”

“Uh lad I’m gonna have to agree with the lass here because, I don’t know about you... But I’m pretty sure that if’n ya don’t have legs you’re pretty much deader than a doornail.” Shawn pointed out, both he and Susie were not seeing it from the angle they were at. Sammy and Thomas however both took a better look… and finally noticed the large, more ink like puddle that followed after the person’s torso.

“Jesus Christ!” Thomas shouted once he finally registered just what the hell he was looking at.

“Oh my god…” Sammy backed away in fear. “Norman get away from… from that _thing_!”

Norman would have normally objected… but since he was a bit closer he noticed everything **wrong** with the thing crawling towards them. From the fact it looked to be completely covered in ink, to the elongated jaw that seemed to almost be permanently open, to the far too big to be normal hands that carried it across the floor and to the ink that followed it from the missing lower half of its body. Allison was just noticing it herself as she dropped her heels onto the floor with a loud clattering.

“W-What the hell is that thing?!” Allison screamed backing away to quickly and stumbling backwards.

“I… I have no idea!” Norman shook in fear as he also backed away, his eyes scanned the nearby area for anything he could probably use. Eyes finally landing on a piece of broken wood Norman picked it up quickly and turned his attention back to the half formed ink like person.

“Stay back!” The Projectionist shouted, brandishing the board as a weapon. The ink torso paused for a moment, as if it tried to consider what was asked of it… before groaning louder then before, like something was physically hurting it at the moment… before it seemed to pick up its pace in approaching them.

Behind the duo confronting the ink thing, Susie was one of the first to notice the sound of more groaning going on around them. Looking back the way they came, she saw more of those things crawling down the stairs to their direction.

“What… what the hell are these things?! The voice actress screamed clutching onto Sammy as if he was a life line.

“What the Hell?! Someone tell me this all be some crazy joke some o’ my colleges are pulling, ta get back at me for all them pranks!” Shawn shouted, backing up behind the second tallest person in the room, Wally, and pretty much attempting to use him as a shield. Wally however, just grabbed Shawn and held onto the short man.

“I'm just hoppin’ this is all my head injury messing with me!”

Thomas to his credit, was able to keep himself from panicking as much as the others and took in their surrounding area before finding a path that was clear from these… things.

“This way! Come on let's get a move on over here!” The injured handyman called out, already making his way for the path. The toy maker and trainee didn't need to be told twice, as they bolted into the direction Thomas pointed them to.

Allison was able to quickly pick herself up and run after them while Susie and Sammy both took off after Shawn and Wally. Norman took up the rear, making sure the others ran off first before following after as quick as possible, still holding onto the wooden plank for a bit before tossing it at one of the ink monsters that got to close and then booking it down the hall with the others.

_What the hell is even going on anymore?_

….

Grant was not enjoying himself as he sloshed through the ink, looking for any kind of drain pump to lower the ink levels to not be at his knees. He had already thrown up earlier from looking at the dead bodies of the workers and the stress was really starting to get to him more then usual.

 _I'm quitting the moment I get out of this Death maze of a studio… and then filling a lawsuit first chance I get._ Grant planned, finally finding a pump and twisting the valve. Relief filled the accountant as the dark liquid drained to nothing. At first he hated how much money they had wasted on these strangely efficient pumps that Joey designed, but now he was thanking the high heavens for their existence.

 _“Mis…. ter...Co… hen.”_ Grant froze at the voice, it sounded a little familiar but sounded muffled and like the speaker hadn't used their vocal cords in a long while.

“Yes. Whose-” Turning to the voice’s location Grant paled and backed away in pure horror. It was a figure dripping in ink, their body looking far to fragile… and twisted to be even considered a normal human. It's only thing that wasn't covered in ink were it's glowing yellow eyes that looked as if they were in deep pain.

 _“Hel…. p… hurts…everything... wrong… Help!”_ the thing spoke, shambling closer to the accountant with one arm held out in a pleading gesture to the man. Grant however was to petrified to pick any of this up, fight or flight instincts running wild with the accountant. Acting on these instincts Grant seemed to go with a mix as he picked up a nearby chair and threw it with all his strength at the ink creature, before running as fast as he could to the closest exit he could find.

….

To say Lacie’s survival was nothing short of a miracle would be a down right understatement. She had only made it up to one floor above the music department before the ink started to get to be to much for the mechanic. Seeing no other options and was feeling completely desperate, she found a floating crate and had crawled in as best she could before closing the top right on herself. After that she just simply waited, closed her eyes to calm herself and steady her breathing.

Somewhere during her wait she had passed out and was only now waking up in the darkness. She was confused for a moment before everything came back to her in an instant.

 _I…. I'm alive!_ She laughed a little as the simple phrase repeated in her head for a bit. It however quickly changed to sobs around the fourth time those words came to mind.

 _But at what cost?_ Lacie’s tears rolled down her face as the screams of her co workers rang out in her ears… the death cries of Bertram echoing over them as he died in a mechanical prison with the cursed black liquid. Just thinking about how her boss died made the mechanic’s breathing spike up in panic.

Cold and trapped he must have been. Walls closing in around him as the ink shoved him into the damned mechanical attraction. The inner workings of the machine both digging deep into his body as well as electrocuting it from the liquid covering him. Not to mention the darkness surrounding him… oh god when had the darkness around her become so suffocating?

 _I need to get out of here!!_ Lacie screamed in her mind before kicking the top off as hard as she could. The lid came off with ease and to her delight there wasn't any ink crashing down into the crate. The light from above was like a breath of fresh air to lungs that had been deprived from it. The mechanic slowly sat up, popping her back a bit from the cramped position she was in for a while before looking around. The ink looked like it would have been waist high but other then that, there didn’t seem to be any more ink pouring into the room anymore.

Carefully pulling herself out of the crate and into the ink, Lacie’s heart rate did not lower from their pounding levels  as her legs became submerged in the dark liquid and ruining her overalls even more then any oil ever did. Her long sleeved grey shirt and thick gloves fared no better… but they were all small prices to pay just to get out of this death trap of a studio.

Slowly wading her way through the large amounts of ink she soon found some stairs and began to ascend them to hopefully get to an exit. As she got to a platform in the stairwell she heard someone screaming and the sound of someone’s shoes pounding on the floorboards over head.

“What in the world could be so terrifying up there?” Lacie pondered out loud, her thoughts only drifting to what she had seen in the lower levels of the building… but not able to draw anything up that would be more horrifying than what she had already seen. Unless someone was deathly afraid of corpses, it didn’t really make to much sense to her as she continued to climb the stairs to the floor above. Once she made it she saw another surviving person run past her like the devil was hot on their trail.

“Hey now wait a moment!” Lacie called out after the person, but they had already run to far ahead of her. Letting out a huff, she reached up and brushed her bangs out of her eye for a moment, before it fell back into place and she started to take a few steps out of the stairway and into the hallway.

 _Damn… just what has that guy more scared than a rabbit looking at a fox’s teeth?_ Lacie thought before she heard footsteps coming up in the direction the person had run from. Taking a deep breath she turned to the approaching person in hopes to get some answers… only to be taken completely aback at what she was looking at.

There coming down the hallway was a small, almost cartoon looking… think with to many arms to be a normal person. It’s main body was black while it’s face was white, the three arms it had were ended in white cartoony gloves and it’s left eye was large and oval with a little pie cut in it… and that’s where the cartoony looks ended as it’s right eye was far to human and opened up wide with no eyelids, where its mouth is supposed to be there’s instead stitches keeping it tight while a full mouth of teeth were atop it’s head and clattering. It’s single arm on it’s left side looked like it was being held together with an extender bar and it appeared that it’s left ankle was broken from the way it was dragged behind the creature with every step it took, was also horrifying to see that it’s body still seemed to be slowly trying to shape itself into a completed form.

Upon seeing her it's mismatched eyes seemed to light up in recognition and it seemed to hurry its limp. Lacie was practically frozen in place, her mind trying its best to figure out just what it was she was looking at…. but as it got closer she backed up. The fear that froze her in place slowly ebbed away with each step she took backwards, slowly allowing her to slowly but finally turn around to run away. However before she could she was stopped at hearing the things broken voice.

 _“Help, help! Please! Everything's wrong!”_ She recognized the voice, despite the broken tone and distortion in it… she recognized it as one of the mechanics that she had worked with not to long ago.

“Oh… Oh my god!” Lacie muttered in pure horror. Her gaze forced to look at this **thing** a coworker of hers was forced to become.

….

A chant slowly drew to an end, the small little flames on top of the red candles growing in intensity before changing from their normal bright orange color to a hellish black before burning out into nothing. The ritual was complete and the man who was conducting them smiled and leaned back into his wheelchair. The only light left was the white candle and the man held it up to the inky construction of the studio, deciding to check a few things over once again. Inside still looked the same with the formed blobs of ink moving around now but now he was seeing glowing white spots among the darkened halls and malformed shapes.

“Hmm, seems there’s a few stragglers.” The man muttered a small frown appearing on his face as he counted up the white spots and watched many of them running through the halls. Tapping onto the inky frame, making it change the layout to the other floors of the studio. He frowned even more at the sight of a larger group of these white spots all traveling together, making a mental note to find a way to fix that eventually. He then tapped through a little more before pausing at one floor in particular.

“Oh? What’s this?”

In what appeared to be the middle of the area, the largest ink blob he had ever seen compared to all the others bubbled and was slowly forming something. It’s shape wasn’t unstable like the blobs, however it didn’t seem to be forming a small figure nor did it make a miniature looking toon. It also seemed to be slowly taking it’s time to form unlike many of the others that formed already.

A smile formed on his face, it was unexpected from what he was originally intending yes, but this was only making everything seem a bit more interesting now. He tapped through the floors before landing on the one with the most white spots on it and let out a soft hum.

“I wonder… Will any of these lights make more interesting shadows?”

….

“I don’t know about the rest of ya, but I’m convinced that this became hell and we all be dead!” Shawn shouted in panic as the group arrived onto a new level. They had slowed down a bit as this floor had more ink puddles on the ground, and with those ink like torsos they had just gotten away from they were much more cautious around these puddles.

“I’m still banking on the idea this is all just a nightmare from my head injury!” Wally responded, shaking fear in his voice. Looking down at a puddle closest to them and half expecting it to come to life.

“No please, shout louder. I don’t think you’ve alerted all those _things_ to our location yet.” Sammy sneered at the two loud ones, only to get elbowed from Thomas’s good arm and a side glare from the handyman. Sammy was so close to clocking Thomas in the face, but stopped when he saw Norman’s disapproving gaze behind him and instead settled on giving the injured man a glare.

“Honestly Shawn… I think hell might be pretty close if those… those things are anything to go by…” Allison quietly muttered, wringing her hands together to prevent a panic attack that was threatening to come as she looked at all the ink.

“If anything else, we **_really_ ** need to get out of here **now** if those… those creatures are just going to… to appear!” Susie breathed, her hand over her heart and stopping in her tracks. The effects of everything going on around her finally making her breathing hard to control from fear. At the higher volume of the woman’s voice Thomas took a glance at Sammy, wondering if the guy was going to make any mention of how noisy she was being.

Instead Sammy went over to Susie’s side and gently took a hold of her hand.

“Easy now… we just need to go down a few more floors. We’ll get out of here, I promise.” The music director’s voice was oddly soothing and gentle as he spoke to the voice actress. Susie still breathed heavily but she leaned into the blond haired man, making his eyes widen a little as she buried her face into his shoulder. Her hand that he was holding gripped his own tighter. It was clear Sammy had little idea on what to do next as a very flabbergasted expression graced his face.

“Oh good to know Lawrence plays favorites.” Thomas drawled, annoyance being dragged out with every word. A slap upside the head was the injured handyman’s reward, causing him to wince and turn to the one who did it, Norman. “What the hell?”

“I don’t care if you have some beef with Sammy, hell I’m well aware that Sammy himself isn’t innocent in that light either. But my god, will one of you two just grow up and deal with it already.” Norman chastised, feeling more like he was talking to a child then an adult at the moment. Thomas turned a surprised gaze to the projectionist, and was quiet for a bit before speaking up again, as if something clicked in his head.

“You got kid’s or something?” Norman froze at the question, looking the handyman right in the eye with shock before turning away with a sad sigh.

“Not anymore…” the sadness and regret in the man’s quiet voice nearly broke Thomas’s own heart. Before Thomas could attempt to speak to the man any words of comfort Norman stopped him. “Doesn’t matter at the moment though… it was a long time ago anyways.”

A gentle hand was felt on his arm and Norman nearly jumped out of his skin before noticing it was Allison. She didn’t say a word, not like she had to… if it was as long as he said it was, all the words she could have offered had already been said to him. Instead she just gave his arm a few gentle pats and a sad, yet understanding gaze.

“When did this horror show turn into comfort time theater?” Wally whispered to Shawn in an attempt to relieve his own stress at the moment, while the Irish man, who was glancing between the two other groups for a bit, shrugged.

“I dunno laddie… Though looking at how Mr. Lawrence and Ms. Campbell be getting along I can’t help but wonder when they be planning a wedding.” Shawn’s louder voice was clearly heard from the reactions of both Sammy and Susie. Bright red were their cheeks and the music director turned to possibly yell at the toy maker, but the voice actress beat him to the punch by scooping up a piece of broken wood and throwing it at the shorter man. Thankfully both he and Wally ducked out of the way, Wally letting out a small scream and throwing his arms over his head to shield it better and Shawn just getting a wide eyed look.

“We’re just friends you nosey, loudmouthed carpenter!” She shouted, even with her one hand still holding onto Sammy’s. Seeing this Shawn seemed to ponder something for a moment, one of his hand’s fingers making a tapping motion before a mischievous smirk crawled onto his face. Oh he had so many plans brewing in his mind… to bad Sammy seemed to pick it up quickly.

“Don’t you even dare try anything Flynn! We’re friend’s! End of story!”

By this point the other three were watching the scene unfold before them and Norman sighed. The projectionist knew he’d have to play peacekeeper once again at this rate and was fully prepared to step in again, but surprisingly Allison stopped him.

“When you tell Shawn not to do something, he takes it as a challenge… It’s really not worth the effort trust me.” The resigned tone in her voice and the tired look on her face were all Norman needed in order to know that she had dealt with this… far to many times and decided to back off, for now.

“While this is cute and all, I think we’ve all had enough of a breather by now.” Thomas spoke up, both as a way to break up what was going on, but also reminding everyone they still had to get out of here. Thankful for the topic change, both Sammy and Susie quickly agreed and both quickly started to walk down the hall as quick as they could.

“They do realize they’re still holding hand’s right?” Wally questioned as he watched the two march away with stiff, straightened backs.

“Ah, just let the love bird’s enjoy themselves a bit.” Shawn snickered and started to follow after, his mood greatly lifted from the fear he had earlier… though it still floated around at the back of his head each time he even saw some large puddles of ink.

“... Children I swear…” Norman muttered as he pinched the bridge of his nose, before following after his two friends and coworkers. Allison was close behind, and both Thomas and Wally filed in as well. Being behind the others no one really noticed when Wally wince a little as he felt a throb of pain shoot through his head, and just as quickly as it came it also left.

 _Ah geez… I think I really need a hospital if this is gonna be a constant thing…_ Wally thought, a hand going up to where the cut would be on his head underneath the torn up sleeve and gently rubbing over it. He continued to follow after them, not noticing that one of the ink puddles behind him bubbled up a bit when the pain began… but settled back down when the pain ebbed away, as if nothing had happened at all.

….

Watching the white spots, the man blinked when he saw a small amount of black seem to creep into one of them for a moment before vanishing just as quick as it had appeared.

“What was that?” Leaning closer he tried to see if it was just a trick of the light or if it was going to happen again… but to no luck he didn’t see anything happen and frowned.

“I could have sworn… Ah forget it Joey, it was probably a trick of the mind.” the man, Joey freaking Drew, spoke to himself and shook his head. After all if any of the ink was going to take someone over it would be much more obvious with the brighter colors he was seeing for the normal ones.

…

In the basement, ink flooded the whole place. The attractions completely submerged in the black abyss of ink and unable to properly turn or operate, even if any of the sunken bodies in it were alive to operate them that is. However despite this, the large carousal's spinning carts moved, as if twitching for a moment before going back to being stagnant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just pumping these chapters out like crazy by this point, holy hell.


	4. Chapter 4: Deeper into Hell

If one were to tell Lacie that one day she would be trying to get the hell out of a death trap, with a twisted toon that was once a coworker of hers practically clinging to her leg like a lifeline. The mechanic would have looked you dead in the eye and told you to go sober up and not talk to her again for the rest of the day. Right now however she was quietly wondering if someone just straight up replaced all the water in the studio with alcohol.

The name of the coworker slipped her mind, she was sadly never very good at names to begin with, but she could recognize both his voice as well as the pure fear that shook him to his very core at everything that’s happened. Though she very much wanted to run and leave this… thing her coworker became behind, she made herself stay and try to comfort him as best as she could… which lead to where they are now with her walking through some halls while holding onto one of the coworker turned toon’s hands.

“... How you holding up?” Lacie gently asked, the two walking carefully through the halls… and also trying to sidestep the fact she couldn’t remember his name. Maybe if she could see what he looked like before she would have a better guess on his name… but all that was going on now was just a blank for her. Quiet muttering from the completely dislocated mouth was her response and she could only give him a saddened glance.

“... Hey, how about this. I find out how this happened, and then beat the person who did this over the head with the heaviest wrench I can find… and you could punch them in the gut while he’s down. Then we get them to fix this.” Lacie offered, knowing it might actually be next to impossible to actually do so… but the thought wasn’t a bad one. Heck it got the ink creature to nod a little, she did notice how the ink seemed to finally be settling with all the final details at this point.

“... How… does that feel to you?” Lacie questioned, hoping there was at least something that she could do to help.

_“Everything hurts… everything's wrong… breaking… snapping… sinking… burning…”_ the twisted toon shook as he spoke, his speech still unable to form complete sentences. Lacie bit at her lower lip, her heartbeat raising again as images started to play…. the scene of Bertram’s death coming in most clear as each of these words were spoken.

She was only brought out of these flashbacks by the suddenly much tighter grip on her hand. If she wasn’t wearing gloves she swore whatever counted as fingernails for the twisted toon would have cut into her skin. Turning her attention to the toon she saw that he was holding his head in his other two hands… and single human eye seemed to be unfocused and shuddering.

“Hey… hey are you-”

_“Name…”_

“Huh?” Confused on what brought this up, Lacie slowly began to regret her decision to try and help the human turned toon as the more human looking eye continued to quiver a little, and attempted to look at her face.

_“Name! Name! Namenamenamenamenamename!”_ Lacie’s fear started to return as the twisted toon practically shouted at her… but she did understand what he was trying to ask and knew she wouldn’t be able to help at all. The growing fear overriding her pride at the moment she tried to pull away from the former coworker. She couldn’t even get a word out before the toon seemed to grip it’s head in pain and begin to scream.

The twisted toon dug it's fingers into its head as if he was trying to pry it apart, while the one holding her gloved hand was squeezing it so hard Lacie thought that he was trying to break it. The top of the toon’s head started to drip ink from how deeply it had dug it's fingers in… and Lacie was forced to pull her hand out of her glove before it’s grip broke it. It took a bit of effort but she was able to do it.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” She shouted while backing away, the former coworker still screaming but now seemed to be convulsing a bit as he dropped to the ground. As she backed away, Lacie heard something coming their way from the hallway. Taking her gaze off of the former human to look down, the curly haired woman had to cover her mouth to suppress a scream as a group what looked like a torso made of ink began crawling toward her.

_Fuck all this, I’m done!_ Lacie thought finally turning to the hallway that was clear from the oncoming torsos and wasn’t blocked by the twisted toon and running as fast as her legs could take her. All while the sounds of screams and groans of pain echoed behind her.

….

It was so quiet, and normally he liked it that way… but this amount of silence was concerning. Jack couldn’t place why as he pushed himself up, his legs feeling so numb it was almost as if they weren’t really there. His whole body felt in pain… though then again last he remembered something hitting him.

_Why’s it so dark?_ Jack thought as he was sure he opened his eyes… though all he could see was darkness. Reaching forward he realized quickly his movement was a little sluggish and that he couldn’t see his own hand either. It was just pure darkness.

_Maybe the lights went out?_ Jack rationalized to himself and nodded to himself, attempting to get himself to stand up. Once again it felt like his legs just weren’t complying with him and all it felt like to him was that he could only get up onto his knees.

_Well… that’s going to make getting out of here difficult…_  Jack sighed, and decided to just wait till he could feel his legs again. It’s not like he was dying after all, so why worry? Sure the pain he felt that spread through his body was something for concern, but he figured it was mostly from whatever had hit him.

As he got settled to wait, the old lyricist never really noticed how he was actually completely submerged in ink… nor the fact that he had no trouble breathing in it… let alone the fact he actually wasn’t even breathing at all.

….

Grant had never run so much in his entire life like he was doing now. He was gasping for breath and his muscles were so sore he swore that if he stopped running he would collapse to the ground.

It also did not help him at all that there were more than just the twisted ink humanoids now. He had seen humanoid torsos that dragged themselves on the ground with elongated jaws. Not to mention the twisted living cartoons he saw shambling around…. hell one of them had its head swinging around on a fishing line!

_I'm dead! Joey Drew broke me with all his spending habits and I died from a heart attack. Now I'm somehow in hell!_ Grant thought to himself, doing his best to rationalize everything happening around him. Unfortunately for him, even he doesn't completely believe this line of thought… even though it was the best he had.

Barely registering a stairway going down, the accountant turned far to quickly to go down and lost his footing, making him stumble and fall down the stairs into more knee high ink. Pushing himself back up, Grant began to cough out some ink that got into his mouth and nose from his fall.

The accountant tried to stand up but quickly noticed that his vision was far to blurry.

_Shit my glasses!_ Grant quickly dove his hands into the ink below feeling around for the eyewear he needed. It seemed to just keep avoiding his fingertips the longer he took, fear slowly building up as more time was wasted on trying to find his glasses. It really didn't help at all when he heard someone's footsteps sloshing through the ink towards his location.

Growing more frantic he kept digging through until he finally found them. Pulling them up quickly and quickly wiping some of the ink off he placed them back in their proper place, before hurrying on his way. However as soon as he rounded a corner he ran right into someone… and they weren't made of ink.

Both of them staggered back from one another and evaluated each other. For Grant he quickly noticed this was a woman, a mechanic if her outfit was anything to go by. Curly black hair seemed to stick to her face a bit from probably sweat and ink, and he could see under the longer side bangs she had there were small patches of light in that darker skin of hers.  The same was with her hand that seemed to be missing a glove. She also seemed to be giving him a look of suspicion as she looked at him.

Lacie, to her credit, was looking over the accountant with the same level of detail he was doing. She saw how Grant’s normally slicked back hair was all a mess from all the ink and running he was doing. His normally more presentable suit was probably never going to be worn again after all this. Finally was the fact that he seemed to be surprisingly uninjured despite how he looked like he had just went through hell.

“... you ain't gonna blow a gasket and have an identity crisis are you?” Lacie cautiously asked, making whatever question Grant was possibly thinking to ask fade away into pure confusion.

“I… I beg your pardon?”

“Forget it… Who are you?” Lacie sighed, trying to seem calm but fully prepared to bolt if the need arose.

“Grant Cohen... head of finances… and your one of Piedmont’s workers if I'm not mistaken.” Grant didn't know why but the woman before him let out a long sigh of relief before finally speaking.

“Lacie Benton. Now I don't know about you Grant, but I say we get to the closest exit and get as far away from this studio as possible.”

Nothing said to him that day sounded sweeter then what Lacie had just suggested.

….

“Seems like we're not the only ones to survive here.” Thomas mused to himself as he saw one of the Ink drains looking like they had been activated on the floor they just arrived on.

“That's going to make the trip to the exit easier then.” Norman sighed in relief. That was one problem out of the way.

“Wish those drains would help with the other inky problem…” Susie muttered, she and Sammy had both calmed down enough from their embarrassment earlier, and had let go of each other's hands a little while back.

“Well lassie, I wish we could take the elevator but with this whole Ink mess I be thinking that don't be no good idea. Or really possible now that I really think bout it.” Shawn mused as he thought about the open cage elevator the studio had. Allison and himself would have probably used it before had the ink not blocked the door leading to it.

“We are not riding that death trap.” Thomas stated, his hatred of the mechanical transport through the floors on full display.

“Oh! Because of the ink messin with the inner workings! That would make the entire thing plummet straight to the lowest levels and smash into the ground!… Right?” Wally excitedly explained, putting some of what he learned from being a maintenance worker on display. Thomas blinked in surprise for a moment but gave Wally a congratulatory pat on the back with his right arm.

“Yes and no kid. Yes there's a good chance of that happening now, but no that's not the main reason I refuse to use it.” Thomas responded, getting a slightly confused look from Wally.

“There’s another reason?”

“Thing’s practically a rush job. Even without the ink that cage would probably come crashing down eventually.”

Neither of the two handymen noticed the uncomfortable looks they were getting from the others, mostly from how excited Wally seemed to explain what would happen.

“I don’t think I can look at an elevator the same way again now...” Allison muttered and rubbed at her arms.

“I ain’t ever stepping on one again if these two are around lass…” Shawn responded with an uncomfortable expression on his face.

“Way to ruin elevators guys…” Sammy hissed and turned his gaze away from where the handymen were.

“Or at least the one here.” Susie offered, rubbing one of her arms and walking near the music director. She did stop however once something caught her eye and it seemed like an idea came to mind as she looked at it. “Anyone got a good arm?”

At her question everyone paused and looked in the same direction. There sitting on a wall was one of the many fire axes that were placed throughout the studio. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the plan was for such an item.

“Pretty sure Sammy’s good arm is on display.” Wally joked as he glanced over to the music director. Sammy for his part gave the red haired youth an unamused look, missing the slight blush on Ms. Campbell’s face as she stole a glance at his sleeveless arm.

“Want me to take my sleeve back and slap you upside the head for that?”

“No, no I’m good!”

“Well if none o’ ya are gonna take it, I’m gonna take it!” Shawn exclaimed as he practically marched up and pulled the fire axe off it’s position. Thomas, Norman and Sammy could all only stare as this man, who barely barely broke 5’ 3” in height, picked up the axe and had the mischievous smile of a kid that was about to pull a prank on someone. Allison pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to offset a headache that was threatening to surface. Susie winced, almost regretting pointing the fire axe out. Wally however didn’t seem to get why the others were reacting the way they were, at least they now had something to help take care of those ink creatures.

“Well, what we be waiting for? Let’s head down n maybe we will find more for the lot o you!” Shawn grinned as he marched onward, resting his newly acquired axe on his shoulder and humming merrily.

“... What have we done?” Allison muttered, moving on from pinching the bridge of her nose to full on pressing her hand onto her head.

In all honesty no one knew what just happened aside from her… and possibly Shawn. But from Shawn’s sudden surprised yelp from up ahead along with the sound of the axe hitting something wooden they just figured they had made some sort of mistake. Quickly catching up to the Irish toy maker they found the chopped remains of one of the many Bendy cut outs that littered the studio.

“Uh… Shawn was it?” Norman asked, glancing over to Allison as well as the mentioned toymaker himself, but only getting a nod from the voice actress. Norman then continued on with what he was saying. “Why in the world would you chop up a cardboard cut out? It ain’t really worth it…”

“It jumped right out at me!!” Shawn shouted, pointing the axe at the broken cutout. Everyone just stared between the man and the cutout and a collective, quiet agreement was made between everyone but Shawn at that moment.

“... Alright that’s it. You’ve just lost axe privileges.” Sammy stated as he grabbed for the axe only for Shawn to pull it away.

“I’m being serious! I right came out o’ nowhere and got in me face!”

“Flynn, it’s cardboard. It can’t move on it’s own.” Thomas stated as Sammy still tried to take the axe from the shorter man.

“Look I know I mess around and pull a lot of japes Tom,” Thomas quietly objected to the nickname once again, but Shawn ignored it and continued. “But believe me when I say it literally came out of nowhere!”

“We’re all on edge Shawn… Doesn’t mean it wasn’t just set up there and you thought it came from nowhere.”  Allison pointed out, getting herself a mock look of hurt from her former boss.

“I may be needing to use my reading glasses for more than just reading nowadays, but I ain’t blind yet lass! I know what I saw!”

“Give me the damn axe already Flynn!” Sammy shouted, still struggling with the Toymaker. As Shawn kept fighting the music director to keep the weapon, he was not expecting it to finally get taken from his hands by Susie.

“Hey!” Shawn shouted only to be cut off by the pointed glare that both Susie and Sammy gave him.

“You are not getting this back until you are less smash happy Flynn.” Susie stated before handing the axe to Norman, seeming to set Shawn off a little more.

“Oh so you just hand it to the giant of the studio instead?”

“Well that was rude.” Norman muttered but still held onto the axe.

“One, Mr. Conner over there has a bad arm.” Susie pointed out to the handyman’s relocated arm.

“That's fair.” Thomas nodded.

“Two, knowing Wally he would set it down somewhere then forget about it.” Susie continued, getting a mock hurt expression from the red haired man.

“I would not!”

“Your keys seem to say otherwise Franks.” Sammy deadpanned, making Wally flinch lightly.

“Three, **I** don't want to get near those things. So I'm not holding onto it. Four I doubt Ms. _Pendle_ would either.” The hint of venom that slipped into Susie’s voice as she mentioned her fellow voice actress made the brunette flinch then look away with guilt rising up.

“You… you would be right on that…” Allison muttered, barely being heard.

“And lastly… Sammy was busy.”

“No, no give the real reason lass.” Shawn pushed, he could tell she was skipping out on something. The black haired woman just gave Shawn a pointed glare and refused to anything else on the matter.

“Whatever, we got a weapon. Let's just get a move on before-” Thomas started, only to be cut off as the studios building began to shake violently.

“NOW THERE’S AN EARTHQUAKE?!” Wally shouted, arms instinctively flying up to cover his head as he tried to curl up into a ball as there wasn’t any good cover nearby.

Norman panicked for a moment as he nearly lost his balance, the axe still in his hands. Thinking quick the projectionist tossed the axe away from himself as well as the others. The solid thunk that it made without anyone shouting in pain was his best indication he succeeded. He soon dropped to the ground and used one arm to keep himself steady while the other covered his head as covered as possible.

Susie wasn’t fairing to well either, and ended up stumbling into Allison, knocking them both over onto the ground. Shawn wasn’t to far behind them on stumbling onto the ground, but also quickly took to Wally’s example and curled up to try and keep his head safe incase anything decided to break from above.

Thomas had the worst luck as instead of the ground, he stumbled into a wall. Smashing his bad arm against it and making him cry out in pain before falling onto the ground, once again right on the once dislocated arm. Today really just wasn’t his day.

Sammy for his part, having worked in the lowest parts of the building for so long, with the ink machine humming and leaking overhead all the time, pretty much just handled this exactly like how he handled the ink machine. Just sit down, wait it out and be annoyed as hell about it till it was finally over.

What none of them were prepared for however, was the sound of cracking from the floorboards… or the fact some of the floor broke through underneath a few them, sending Susie, Allison and Norman into the depths below. Wally and Shawn almost fell as well but unlike the other three managed to grab onto the rest of the floor for dear life.

“ALLISON!” Shawn screamed, almost reaching a hand out for her but self preservation instincts made him, almost reluctantly, keep full hold onto the part of the floor that he held onto. All he could do was dangle there for a bit and listen to their screams as they had fell. Wally fared no better in that regard as he nearly did reach out to try to grab one of them, but flinched away in fear of his own fall.

“SUSIE! NORMAN!” Sammy screamed when he saw them fall, pushing himself from his spot and rushing over to the hole. He barely noticed that the Earthquake had stopped and was to focused on the ones who had fallen.

“Shit!” Thomas cursed as he pushed himself up, despite his pain and hurried over to the hole. Looking through he only saw darkness and no sign of the three who had fallen. He could however still see Shawn and Wally. Shawn was able to pull himself up pretty easily, but Wally seemed to be in a frozen state of fear. The handyman noticed that the part of the floor Wally was hanging onto looked like it would come undone any minute.

“Damn it kid…” Thomas sighed then reached down with his good arm, and grabbed one of Wally’s arms. “Hey, Lawrence, Flynn! Would one of you mind giving me a hand with Wally over here?”

Sammy seemed to be completely out of it as he looked down through the broken floor. Desperately searching for any sign of the others, but none were popping out to him. Shawn almost was as bad but he at least was snapped out of it by Thomas’s request and hurried over.

….

Grant had been stealing a few glances towards his companion as they traversed the halls. He didn’t think Lacie noticed all that much, and if she did she made no indication of it. He really just couldn’t help looking though, he hadn’t really seen any one have patches of a different skin color on them before. It gnawed at his curiosity on the cause.

“You know if you’re going to say something, then get on with it already.” Lacie seemed to snap as she turned the valve for the ink drain for this floor.

_Crap, I must have been staring to long…_ Grant thought before clearing his throat.

“Sorry Ms. Bent-”

“Lacie.”

“Right, Ms. Lacie,” he quietly ignored the annoyed sigh she gave at being called “Ms”. “It’s just…”

“Unnatural? Freaky? The product of a frowned upon relationship? Whatever it is, I’ve probably heard them all by now Coinman… so just get on with it already.” Lacie sighed, avoiding looking the accountant in the eyes. Grant’s words died on his tongue for a moment as he processed what she had just said.

“I was going to say lovely… but now I’m just stuck on being called ‘Coin man’.”

Lacie froze at his words. Both surprised at the word he used… and the possible mistake she just made.

“Ah shit… That’s not your last name, is it?”

“No… it’s Cohen.” At his correction, Lacie just slapped a hand over her head and muttered how she “Did it again”, to which Grant took in surprising stride. Before he could say anything the building began to shake violently. Both he and Lacie naturally being used to something similar happening usually with working on the lowest floors of the studio, both just kinda “Assumed the position” and started to wait everything out.

“... Think this would affect those ink creatures as well?” Grant questioned, offhandedly as the building still shook a bit. Lacie shrugged, they had already discussed what they had seen in the studio with the torsos, the twisted figure and the living toon.

“Maybe the twisted one you’ve mentioned… Those torso things might be good being closer to the ground an’ all.”

“And the messed up toon you mentioned?”

“God only knows with that poor soul… Pretty sure he was supposed to be that spider fellow now that I think about it.”

Grant hummed a little in agreement, taking great pleasure in the surprising casual conversation… with the clearly not so casual topic of choice.

“Think the I saw the monkey and the fisherman earlier… what were they called again?” Grant wondered out loud, only to get a pointed look from Lacie.

“Hell if I know. I don’t watch the shorts. I’m just supposed to use some of the designs for a few of the attractions.”

“Never really watched the shorts much myself. To busy trying to get Mr. Drew to follow a stricter budget plan… and failing as he finds ways to screw it over anyways.”

Lacie chuckled a bit at that.

….

Joey hummed to himself as he got to work after watching the white spots for a bit. It really wouldn’t do to keep them all together. If he wanted results, he would have to get them separated. So, reaching out to the ink model… he did a few “changes” to the studio lay out.

The results were instantaneous as the building around him shook and began to reform itself to its new model, though his location remained untouched thanks to a few “contingency” plans put into place. Smiling to himself as he finished, he watched as three of the group got seperated and onto a different level.

Oh… This was going to be good.


	5. Chapter 5: After The Fall

The landing was not fun for Allison, Susie or Norman. At least the large amount of ink broke their fall enough to avoid serious damage, but now all three were pushing themselves up and coughing out the dark liquid. 

“Are… is everyone alright?” Norman coughed, having to spit a good chunk of the ink out of his mouth as he spoke, absentmindedly also notting that his hat went missing somewhere during the fall but not to concerned with it. Looking over he saw Susie was already trying to steady her breathing.

“I'm… I’m alright…” 

Allison however was coughing very violently from the ink, as if she might have swallowed some. Norman waded over to her side and began to gently pat her on the back. The taller man continued to do so until the smaller voice actress finally coughed out the ink.

“Feeling better now?” Norman questioned, only to get a slow nod from Allison as she was catching her breath once again.

“Good then we should find a way back to the others, and get out of here as soon as possible.” Susie stated and quickly turned on her heels to find an exit. Norman frowned at this and took a single glance up through where they had fallen… he could barely make out just how far they had fallen or even if the others were still at the top. Hell he couldn't even tell what floor they had fallen to.

_ How in the world did we survive that fall?  _ Norman thought after his observation and turned his attention back to Allison.

“Think you can move yet?” He asked as gently as possible as he saw how the smaller woman still seemed to be trying to slow her breathing after her coughing fit.

“I… I think.. think so…” the brown haired woman wheezed as she shakingly stood up completely, her legs nearly giving out once from how much she shook. Thankfully Norman caught her and held her up. “Thank… thank you.”

Norman just gave her a smile and helped her walk after Susie, just to make sure nothing worse happened to her then choking on ink. Thankfully after a few steps Allison seemed to be back to normal and was slowly catching up to Susie.

Susie on the other hand was quietly sheathing in anger. Of all the people she could be stuck with… it had to be her replacement. Norman she could tolerate, he was a good man and she often liked the man’s calming presence. Allison however... The black haired woman just barely found anything in her heart to quell her jealousy and pain for what her fellow voice actress did.

_ At least there’s one good thing I can think of with her… she didn’t install the ink machine into the whole studio.  _ Susie thought, glaring at some of the pipes that still dripped the damned liquid she was forced to walk through… the damned liquid that took so many lives. How… How many of them did she know? 

“Ms. Campbell?” Allison’s quiet voice caught Susie’s attention. The black haired woman turned to the shorter woman and gave her a small glare, making the brown haired woman shift a little uncomfortably at it. 

“What?” Susie’s tone was harsh, making Allison almost want to back down. Norman, not to far away, had also flinched a little from the harsher tone Susie had taken up.

“I uh… I was going to… I mean you…” The newer voice actress stammered, slowly getting on the other’s nerves the longer she took.

“Spit it out already. An  **angel** doesn’t keep others waiting.” Susie’s venom burned, making Allison look away with pure guilt welling up inside. 

“She was just worried about you Susie!” Norman snapped, making Susie blink and look up at the man in surprise. The projectionist took a deep breath, as if trying to keep himself calm before speaking again. “You were starting to cry. We both got concerned, she just spoke up first.”

Allison avoided looking Susie in the eye but nodded in conformation to what Norman was saying. Seeing this Susie reached a hand up and felt along her left cheek. Under the feeling of some of the ink that was there, she could feel the more recent wet spot from a freshly fallen tear. 

“Oh…” Susie muttered, her ink covered hand still on her cheek. A bit of guilt welled up in her heart at having snapped so quickly at her fellow voice actress. However her own pride practically snuffed out any apology she wanted to give the other woman. 

“... Sorry…” Allison muttered, barely being picked up by either Norman or Susie… but they could tell she at least said something.

“Ms. Pendle?” Norman questioned, turning his full attention to the small brunette, even Susie was now looking with a little more interest at the more timid woman.

“I uh… I said… I said-” Allison froze in fear as she saw something moving up behind Susie. Something that seemed to rise up in height a bit behind her. “BEHIND YOU!”

Turning around to get what was supposed to be a quick glance… turned into a moment of pure pain as what seemed to be one of the ink torso creatures had struck her hard across the face. It’s fingers more like claws that dug through her skin and left her kneeling over, screaming in pain. Before it could get another swipe onto the woman, Norman reacted on pure instinct and punched the thing right in it’s completely unhinged jaw.

Surprisingly it worked, and with that one hit it seemed like the ink creature broke and turned back into a puddle of the substance that made it. Norman stood there in shock… both from how easy that was to how quickly he reacted.

“Ms. Campbell!!” Allison screamed, running to the other woman's side and trying to evaluate the damage. It took this scream to get Norman out of his shocked stupor and quickly into action as well in checking Susie’s injury.

It… it wasn't pretty. The things claws had dug deep, most of the damage was on her left cheek, going diagonally across it and bleeding heavily. There was minor damage on her chin but the other biggest concern was how one of the marks seemed to go towards her eye. Seeing as how Susie covered it the worst had probably happened.

“Ms. Pendle give me a hand with this!” Norman ordered, seeing the amount of blood he didn't want to waste anymore time. 

Allison didn't need to be told twice as she began to rip a few strips of cloth from the hem of her dress. While she was doing this Norman ripped some of his own shirt as well and used those to help keep pressure on the wounds. Once the first strip was added Norman tied it as tight as he could around Susie's head without making things worse for the woman.

It took a little while but with their makeshift bandages they finally patched her up as best they could. Susie was still sobbing from the pain as well as the fact she couldn't see out of her left eye anymore.

“We need to move. Do you think you can walk?” Norman questioned, after glancing around the area and feeling far to exposed.

Through her sobs Susie slowly nodded and stood up, one of her hands staying over her newly bandaged face while the other was trying to clear her vision from the pouring tears. Allison kept close to help her fellow voice actress as best she could as all three of them hurried as fast as possible to find a safer place… or even an exit hopefully.

After all… the axe hadn't fallen with them.

….

Once Wally’s earlier fright had faded, the red haired man practically started to go onto a tangent of worry and fears.

“What if they fell all the way to the bottom? Oh god what if those things got them and they're gonna get us?” It was mostly paranoid questions like that, and it did nothing to comfort the others. Hell Sammy himself started to look more horrified the more Wally went on and Shawn wasn't fairing much better.

“Wally! Get a hold of yourself kid!” Thomas shouted and grabbed hold of one of the younger man's shoulders. The dark brown haired man making the panicked one look him in the eyes before speaking again.

“Panicking will get us nowhere. If we're going to make it out alive, we all need to calm down and make a solid plan.” Glancing away from Wally, Thomas saw the axe they had taken from Shawn not to long ago sitting on the floorboards with a small amount of the handle poking over the hole the others had fallen through. 

Setting his expression into a hard line, the handyman carefully stepped over to it and picked it up. He turned to where Sammy was before calling out to him.

“Lawrence!” Sammy made no moves as Thomas called for him. The older man gave an agitated groan before marching over to the blonde man's side and dropping the axe right next to the music director. The loud thunk of the metal hitting the wood made the man jump and seem to snap him out of whatever stupor held him.

“Pick it up.”

“Excuse me?” Sammy seemed to be lost as he looked up at the handyman’s face.

“The axe. Pick it up and let's get moving.” Thomas ordered, his expression serious and leaving no room for argument. However Sammy seemed hesitant, looking down at the axe with less confidence than anyone had ever seen the man show. Thomas sighed in agitation.

“Look, either you take it, the boy who would throw it at one creature and lose it takes it or the smash happy gremlin takes it. There's a good chance my own arm will get worse if I go swinging this thing around so by default I  **have** to be left out. And being honest, out of the four of us here I'd trust you with a weapon the most.” There was a bit of a protest from Shawn on being called a “gremlin” but aside from that, Sammy listened to every word the handyman said.

Glancing down at the axe and up to the handyman Sammy thought for a bit. Before picking the axe up and pushing himself up to stand.

“I suppose compared to the incompetent Franks and Flynn…” two rounds of offended “Hey’s” resounded from the two other men, but the music director ignored it. “I suppose I'm the best choice after all…”

Sammy didn't feel to sure with himself as he held the fire axe in his hands, but as his thoughts drifted to both Norman and Susie his grip tightened and he took a deep breath to steady himself.

“I coulda handled it just as well Tom.” Shawn complained, getting two unamused looks from both Sammy and Thomas.

“Maybe if you start using my name I might let you use the next one we find.” Sammy turned to Thomas after the handyman spoke.

“Are you being serious?” Sammy hissed in a low tone, but Thomas seemed to not pay attention to it. Wally on the other hand seemed to process his mentors words for a moment before seeming to understand something before the others.

“.... this be a ploy to get me to stop calling you Tom ain't it?” Shawn finally asked after thinking about it for a bit and didn't look amused.

“Give it a try and we’ll see.” Thomas smirked before turning and making his way down the hall. “Besides it's gonna be a long way down. You got plenty of time to figure it out.”

Sammy found a little bit of respect for the handyman popping up after hearing the agitated groan from the toy maker. Getting the weapon he now carried situated a little he soon began following after Thomas not noticing the surprised stare he was getting from Wally as he passed.

“Shawn, I think the worlds ending…”

“Now why be you thinking that now of all times laddie?”

“Well… aside from the earthquake and the Ink flood… Sammy was smiling.” Wally shuddered a little. Shawn couldn't help but put on a mock surprised look, wanting a little more in on the joke.

“That man has the ability to do that?” Shawn gasped in an exaggerated tone, probably having a little more fun with this then he should have. Wally tried to hold back a laugh from the toy makers tone of voice.

“No, I mean yes… I mean I've just never seen him smile… like ever.”

“Well looks like we found one thing that makes the man smile! That's a whole plus in my book!”

“Will you two stop talking about me back there!?” Sammy shouted, making Wally flinch and Shawn frown.

“Ah stop being a joy killer would ya?!” As soon as the words left Shawn’s mouth, Wally’s eyes lit up as an idea hit him. 

“Well he kinda has to be now… he’s the one with the axe to do the killing!” The shit eating grin that Wally had on his face from probably the stupidest joke he had probably ever told made Shawn break out in laughter. Thomas himself couldn’t help but give a light chuckle at it while Sammy was not amused at all.

“Franks, I swear to god….” Sammy attempted to say something, but seemed to just pause and give up before he really got anywhere. 

_ No harm this time I guess…  _ Sammy thought, not noticing the surprised look on Wally’s face at not being chewed out about messing around this time. That surprised look seemed to turn around into an excited smile, sure this was probably the worst day he’s ever had… but he was going to take any little victory he could out of this.

Not even the faint throbbing of pain in his head was going to bring him down from this little moment.

….

Lacie and Grant were making their way through the studio to an exit with a surprising amount of ease. Sure they had to run away from a few of those ink torsos… and twisted toons hell bent on coming after them, but they were making amazing time in getting to the ink pumps and had finally cleared enough to make it to the music department. 

“Hey what do ya know. We're actually going to get out of this hell hole.” Lacie laughed as she walked through the mildly flooded halls.

“After we drain the ink first, but yeah.” Even Grant couldn't help but chuckle tiredly himself. Even though it had only been at least 6 hours, if Grant counted right, since this whole mess started, it still felt like it had been an eternity since he last saw the outside.

As both Lacie and himself wandered, looking for the drain both had started to feel the discomfort of exposure. 

“Alright Coin man, what's the first thing you're going to do when we get out?” Lacie asked, attempting to keep their spirits up with some kind of a distraction. Plus she knew “Coin man” wasn't his name, but it just helped her remember in a way and Grant sure as hell wasn't stopping her.

“The first exact thing I'm going to do is appreciate the outdoors, and all the colors for once.” Grant smirked when Lacie shot him a look that just called him a “smart ass.”

“That's a given by this point. I mean physically what do you wanna do?”

“Take a smoke, then calculate how fast this studio is going to be shut down after this event.” 

“You are a man of simple pleasures ain't ya?”

“And what if you Ms. Lacie? If my plans are so simple, what do you have planned?” Grant turned a corner with the mechanic, both still keeping a lookout for both the drain as well as any more… ink creatures.

“The first thing I plan to do, besides shouting to the high heavens how alive I am… I'm planning on building some kind of memorial… for Bertram and the others…” the joy that Lacie had took a dip into a melancholy tone. Grant gave a sympathetic look to the mechanic.

“... I don't know if anyone else in my department even made it out…” Grant admitted taking more interest in his submerged shoes at the moment. “The… the office was a floor above yours.”

“... I’m sorry…” 

Both of them fell into a moment of silence after that. Mourning the ones who were lost, both known and unknown. Grant reached up to move his glasses so he could wipe away some of the tears that started to form. He had no idea if any of his fellow workers were alive still… he had no idea if Thomas was okay either. What Grant was sure of was that Shawn was probably okay… the toy maker could be like a bad rash that just keeps coming back.

Lacie on the other hand was wondering how many of these ink creatures were people she once knew. After her encounter with the twisted spider toon, Lacie would quietly look on in fear at all the ink creatures she would see. Were they fellow mechanics? Were they animators? Band members? Voice actors? All these questions went through her mind when she would see them and it prevented her from picking up a weapon. These things were victims… they were people! And even if they're monsters now she refused to get blood on her hands.

_ I hope there's some way to free them all…  _ Lacie thought but also paused in these thoughts as something else popped into mind.  _ Wait… how did… how did all these people become ink creatures? How did this happen so quickly? I mean… there’s been ink leaks before… and many people covered in the stuff, yet no one ever turned into these… things before. _

As the mechanic was lost in her thoughts, the accountant was trying to figure out where the ink drain was in this mess of a layout. However as he looked around something seemed to just start occuring to him as well.

_ Wait a minute… We’re in ink that’s just below our knees, and we drained a whole lot of it coming down… why doesn’t everything else look like it’s stained by the ink?  _ Grant adjusted his glasses and frowned as he saw many of the posters on the walls not looking as blacked out. Hell… the most that was on them were small splotches that may as well have been there before the ink flood. Hell, most of the music sheets that littered the floors and some of the music stands seemed to be relatively untarnished by the ink as well. Almost like everything was being reset back to how it all looked right before the ink flood.

_ What in the world is going on in this studio? _

….

“Oh… this won’t do now.” Joey muttered as he saw two of the white blotches so close to one of the exits depicted in the studio model. It seemed like they were going to head for the drain in Sammy’s office, and that was not what he planned for. He can’t let anyone leave before his masterpiece was complete after all.

Joey’s hands folded up under his chin as he thought of what to do to fix this mess. With a soft hum he checked some of the lower floors for anything that he could use. Seeing barely anything and stopping once on the large mechanical ink form that seemed to be refining a few details, Joey dismissed it as he noticed how deeply rooted to the spot it was. No he needed something more mobile then the new creation.

Checking a few of the upper floors, he soon found a few of the shaped blobs that took on the forms of mostly Butcher Gang members, as well as a few of the moving blobs. There were a few humanoid shaped ones as well, but unlike the others these ones had what looked like shades of grey still in them… and no nudging or pushes he did seemed to affect them like it did to the others. That only left him with the few pieces he had.

“Gotta make due I guess…” Joey sighed deeply as he pushed a good chunk of the pieces down to the stairs to take care of the problem. Soon as that was done he decided to check up on the two larger groups.

The largest one consisting of four of the white spots seemed to still be holding strong… though now it almost seemed like there was a bit of grey filling in on one of the four. He wasn’t entirely sure what it meant himself, but seeing as the white was turning to one of the darker pieces that made up his studio he had high hopes for whatever it would bring.

“Suppose I should see if I can speed that up as well.” Manipulating more of the ink blobs, and pushing one or two of the Butcher Gang into the right direction, he soon switched floors again to the second largest group of three. Seeing one that one of them seemed to have taken on a bit of grey as well and already had a few of these darkened creations after them. Joey couldn’t help but be impressed. He barely had to do anything for this one, so instead he sat back to watch closely to see what would happen next.

….

The pain was probably the worst thing Susie had ever felt in her life. One simple slash across the face and yet it felt so much worse to the voice actress. The skin around the wound on her cheek felt like it was burning. That pain however was next to nothing from what she felt with her eye though. It felt like it was ripped out and something akin to hot tar was poured right into the socket.

Norman and Allison wanted to help alleviate the pain as much as possible for her, but there was only so much a projectionist and a toy maker turned voice actress could do. It also didn’t help that after the surprise attack that more of the ink creatures seemed to be coming after them. Possibly for revenge for Norman punching out one of their own… or even to finish the job the last one started. None of them knew and none of them wanted to find out.

“In here quick!” Allison shouted as loud as she could, pointing to an opened door that from a quick glance both Susie and Norman could tell it was surprisingly a stairway leading up. Though Susie was still in a lot of pain from her recent injury, she ran much faster then Norman did into the open door. Norman followed behind before pushing Allison into the stairway and positioning himself between her and the doorway.

“I got the rear, get moving!” Allison nodded quickly at the order and began to make her way up with only a single glance behind her. With that glance however she spotted something.

“The… The wall! Over there!” Allison belted out, pointing in the direction she wanted Norman to look in. Taking one quick look he saw another fire axe hanging there and rushed to take it off the handles that held it up. Once it was off the wall and in his hands both he and Allison made a mad dash up the stairs, Susie was already a ways ahead of the two but she did seem to stop at some point, and seemed to be backing up a little in fear.

“Ms… Ms. Campbell what’s-” Allison started only to freeze in fear at the thing before them. It was much worse then the ink torsos they had seen many times before. It’s form was more solid, taking on a twisted, but familiar form of a toon sailor. It’s body itself seemed to be in perfect condition for a toon, with white four fingered gloves on it’s two hands, a pair of boot like shoes, however that’s where the familiarity ends. It’s neck was replaced by a long fishing pole, bending at the end from the weight of it’s head dangling from it’s flimsy looking line. It’s right eye was small and sunken in with an x for a pupil in that single eye, while the left looked almost normal for a toon, but far to elongated as it touched the upper lip and seemed to be completely hollow. It’s nose appeared to be a broken part of a corn cob pipe while it’s mouth seemed to be frozen in an exaggerated horrified look while it’s teeth seemed to be much to small for the largemouth and looking far more like a human’s set. 

“Is… Is that supposed to be Barley?!” Allison shouted, fear rising up as she saw the twisted toon taking very slow steps towards them. It’s severed head swinging a bit with each step closer it took. Norman rushed in front of Susie, brandishing the axe towards the living toon and keeping the injured woman out of it’s reach.

“Only warning! Back off or I’ll chop the rest of your head off!” Norman threatened, hoping to god this thing would understand him, or at least recognize the threat of the weapon in the man’s hands. It seemed to pause for a bit, almost looking like it was going to listen to the projectionist’s warning… but a small scream of pain from the creature came and suddenly it was charging at the tall man, using its own head as a weapon.

Unnerved by the improvised weapon and not entirely used to using an axe himself, Norman swung the bladed weapon as hard as he could in hopes to hit the thing coming at him. Missing by only an inch, it was Norman who got hit instead by the thing’s head. Stumbling back a bit, Norman let out a winced from the amount of pain that single swing seemed to give him… it was like getting hit by a bowling ball that was thrown right at you full force. 

Seeing this Allison and Susie both nearly froze up in complete fear… still they both laid their eyes on some broken boards on the ground. Picking them up and using their knees to help them break the boards in half, each woman glanced at each other. An unspoken agreement happened between them as Allison was the first one to throw one of the pieces at the twisted version of Barely, right as it’s head was getting close to swinging back for another attack on the projectionist. The board hit the head just enough to throw it off course.

Mildly surprised by this, but not willing to miss his opportunity, Norman swung the axe again, this time digging into the twisted toon’s shoulder. The creature let out a scream of pain as the projectionist attempted to pull the axe out of its body. “Barley” attempted to swing it’s head back around to hit Norman during this time, but another wooden board, thrown by Susie this time, knocked it off course once again with a good hit. 

Norman got the weapon out soon after and saw how instead of blood, the blade was covered in ink, as was the ground around the twisted sailor as the wound bled. Still it stood and attempted at least two more strikes, only for both women to keep to their strategy and after the second strike of the axe to be the final, killing blow as it cut clean through the fishing line. Falling to the ground, “Barley” let out a few gurgling cries from it’s completely severed head before falling silent.

“Is… is it really dead?” Susie panted, more from fear then actual exhaustion. As if to answer her question, all three human’s jumped back as the toon’s whole body melted back into a puddle of ink. 

“I… I guess so… But what… What even was that  _ thing?” _ Norman wheezed, the pain in his chest from the hit he took catching up to him.

None of them knew what to say. Not that they could really… and it didn’t help them at all to hear the now familiar groans of the ink torsos coming in closer to their location from the stairs they climbed up.


	6. Chapter 6: Changes

Wally rubbed a little at his head injury. It somehow didn't hurt as much recently, to which he was thankful for… but from how wet the spot felt underneath the black spot left him a little concerned. It really didn't help him feel any better that when some more ink creatures came and tried to kill them, Wally swore that somewhere during that time the pain had shifted somewhere else on his head and split into two parts.

“Uh… guys think we could stop for a moment?” Wally asked the other three. He was smart enough to wait till they weren't around any of the monsters to make this request.

“If it's for the bathroom Franks then wait. We're not even close to one right now .” Sammy stated from his position in front of the group, keeping an eye out for any more ink creatures.

“That's not… I mean that would be really nice yeah. But I uh…” Wally paused trying to think of how to put it so that Sammy wouldn't blow up at him… which in all honesty would probably still happen.

“You not feeling good Wally?” Thomas asked, a slightly concerned look on his face while looking the younger man over. Sammy frowned at this question Thomas had and turned around only to wince a little when he saw the ex janitor.

“Geez when was the last time you got water or food in you Franks?” Sammy asked, getting a confused look from Wally.

“On my break a while back… I mean sure I probably would like to have some dinner soon but… look I don't see what you're all so worried for, I just wanna check on my head ya know.”

“Laddie you be whiter than a sheet o’ blank paper!” Shawn shouted, gesturing to Wally’s really confused face. He knew he was usually pretty pale but no one was ever concerned by how naturally pale he was.

“Uh… I ain't that pale Shawn. Look I just-”

“He means it literally Wally.” Thomas stated, pointing to one of the trainees hands for him to look at. Wally gave them a quizzical look before looking at one of his hands.

Instead of the usual pale color he was used to, true to Shawn's words Wally’s hand looked like it was as white and colorless as a blanket of freshly fallen snow. Now Wally was just feeling a little concerned before, its just turned into straight up fear.

“Oh my god am I dying?!” Wally screamed, he hadn’t ever really seen himself go so pale before. Hell the red haired trainee hadn’t really seen anyone go this pale before, for well… anything really.

“If you're able to freak out as much as you are, then the answer is no.” Sammy stated in a deadpanned tone as Wally was on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Lad, look at me now!” Shawn shouted, snapping his fingers up to make sure Wally would look over at him. As soon as he had the younger man’s gaze on him, Shawn finally continued. “I’m gonna level with ya right here and now. Ya aren’t dying yet. One day, hopefully in your elderly years and in your sleep yes, but today just going white no. Now I be thinking all you need is a rest and some food.”

“If he’s feeling light headed that is.” Thomas piped up and looking in Wally’s direction for confirmation on this point. Wally’s eyes shifted a little as he tried to figure out if that’s how he felt or not… he was a little too freaked out to really tell. “Okay how about this kid. Did you feel light headed before you started to freak out?”

“N-No not really!” Wally exclaimed, still worrying over the fact he has no idea how he got so pale so quick. It didn't help that the others couldn't think of anything either… nor did the fact that they all heard something coming towards them from the direction they were originally walking to.

“And this is why we keep shouting to a minimum,” Sammy muttered more to himself as he held the axe at the ready to swing at whatever was coming towards them. At first expecting more of the inky torsos they had seen… it turned out to be much worse than that. There were at least three of them… and the whole group recognized that they were supposed to be the members of the “Butcher Gang” from the Bendy shorts the studio made… but much more twisted. Barley’s head swung on his fishing rod, while Edgar barely looked like himself with only three arms and a to human eye. What was supposed to be Charley however was just as horrifying as the other two.

With it’s suit and it’s large ears, as well as his more blackened nose being the same, it’s face was much more different from its original design. It’s lower jaw seemed to be completely dislocated and forced open, making it seem like it was stuck screaming. It’s left eye was sewn shut in the form of an X shape while the right eye looked like it had been ripped out, only to be filled with an inky substance that dripped a bit from the socket and followed a scar that trailed from the eye to it’s gaping mouth. It’s left hand was completely missing while it’s right one was gloved, but attached to a far to skinny arm. It’s right leg looked like it was replaced by a plunger of all things while it’s left looked normal for the toon.

“Why in the hell would ya be using a **_plunger_ ** of all things for a leg?! Do ya even know where that thing has been?!” Shawn shouted, clearly getting over his fear just enough to criticize the twisted toon for something as simple as a plunger for a leg. The twisted Charley seemed to take great offence and rushed forward first, the twisted Edgar following close behind while the Barley seemed to take it’s time.

“You just had to make it mad didn’t you?” Sammy growled as he swung the axe down with all his might, right into “Charley’s” head as it got close enough, nearly splitting it in half down the middle. Ink splashed up onto both Sammy’s arms and onto the floor, before the ink creature before him melted back into a puddle of the dark liquid.

“Hey! I’m pretty sure you’re handling it pretty well!” Shawn pointed out. Sammy wanted to glare at the Irish toy maker but had to get out of the way as “Edgar” tried to strike him with it’s extender bar arm. Unlike the quick death of “Charley”, “Edgar” seemed to be much quicker despite it’s limp and proved to be a little harder to hit. “Barley” seemed to be closing in and Sammy was not prepared to take two twisted toons on. However unlike “Edgar”, “Barley” seemed more focused on the others then on Sammy.

“Shit!” Sammy attempted to swing at “Barley” but “Edgar” was about to strike the music director, forcing Sammy to dodge the strike and abandon his attack for a moment. The other men cursed themselves as the twisted sailer got closer, swinging it’s head… as well as the sound of a few of the ink torso’s making their way down the same hall making the situation all the worse for them.

“Alright that’s it! Tom, do ya got _something_ on ya?!” Shawn shouted at the handyman, seeming to square up his shoulders and looked ready to take the ink creature on with his own two fists if he had to.

“I… Haven’t checked.” Thomas admitted, only to protest a bit when Shawn just started to dig around the small pouch that was attached to his work belt. The short man soon pulled out a wrench, smaller than the ones used for the actual ink pipes, and scowled at the fact it seemed to be the only thing that was in there… but immediately rushed at the twisted toon coming for them with a loud “war” scream. Both Wally and Thomas watching after the toymaker with flabbergasted looks as they watched the shorter man start to beat at the nearly headless creature with nothing but a wrench.

“... How… How did you not notice ya still had a wrench on ya?” Wally had to ask, still in pure surprise… that only grew more when he saw the wrench seemed to be doing **actual damage** to the ink creature. Even said ink creature seemed a little surprised from what the red haired young man could tell.

“How did you not notice you’re as white as a cartoon background?” Thomas asked in return, he honestly was lost on how he missed checking his work belt over on if he still had some of his “Finer Detail” tools. Then again he usually only had smaller tools on his belt for things that weren’t part of the Ink Machine. Though now seeing Shawn pretty much beat a corrupted toon to death with a small wrench Thomas was going to have to rethink a few things.

“... Touche.” Wally was also now beginning to rethink his view on some of the tools, watching how after Shawn finished beating “Barley” had turned to the on coming ink torsos and looked ready to jump them as well.

When Sammy took care of “Edgar” he did pause to stare at Shawn, but still reached out and stopped the smaller man from charging into the larger group of ink creatures coming towards them.

“Don’t go head first into death you moron!” Sammy scolded, holding onto the back of the toymaker’s shirt.

“Oh then you be proposing we turn around, hightail it to find some _other_ stairway and get even more lost in finding the exit?”

“I’m okay with that idea!” Wally exclaimed.

“Not now Franks!”

“Not gonna lie, I feel better with that one as well!” Thomas piped up, getting an annoyed groan from Sammy. Shawn even looked at the two unarmed men with an unamused look.

“Ye of little faith you two!”

“Sorry if I don’t want my once **_dislocated arm_ ** to get any worse than it already is!”

As Thomas shouted, one of the ink creatures lunged forward at the toymaker and Music Director. Despite the fact they seemed a little distracted, it wasn’t enough for them to be completely blindsided by the creature as Sammy just swung the axe at the thing’s head, cutting through it as easy as butter.

Surprise spread through the small group at how easy that turned out to be. Shawn almost immediately began to grin evilly, as he held his wrench at the ready. Sammy had to take a moment to look between the axe and the sudden ink puddle, trying to piece together how that ended up being so easy… after all he didn’t even swing the axe that hard and even he knew he wasn’t **that** tough. Thomas himself was both happily surprised but also felt really disappointed in how easily these things seemed to fall. Wally was just plain surprised.

“We were scared of these things?” Wally questioned as he watched Shawn pretty much having a hayday with beating these things with nothing but a wrench… and how Sammy just cut through them easily.

“I’ve never been more disappointed in something that wants to kill me then I am now…” Thomas stated, really just wanting to smoke now and try to forget all the crazy shit that’s happened today.

….

After finding a good place to actually stop and catch their breath, Allison practically collapsed onto her knees as she felt some of the pain from her shoeless feet settling in. Susie had taken a seat in a chair, her face scrunching up in pain from the deep slashes on her face as well as her injured eye. Norman had leaned against a wall before sliding down it into a seated position with a hand gently rubbing over his ribs where the “Barley”s head had hit him, he wouldn’t be surprised if his ribs were at least bruised from the force of that strike.

Both Allison and Norman decided to take their time checking over both their own injured areas but also double checking on Susie. While checking herself over, Allison found that, during their most recent escape she might have stepped onto a broken board or something as the stocking seemed to be ripped a bit on her right foot and under the ink stains, she could make out a bit of red. It wasn’t as deep or painful looking as poor Susie’s but it was enough to make the newer voice actress want to wrap it up carefully… and also wish she kept her shoes on hand.

Norman found no external injury over his chest, bringing a sense of relief. However even just gently touching the area, Norman winced in pain and found that on at least one side of his chest, a single rib bone felt the slightest bit out of place. Though it could be a trick of his mind due to pain, Norman didn’t want to throw caution to the wind at this point.

As soon as Allison made a quick little makeshift bandage for her foot she gingerly stood up, let out a small hiss of pain from her foot and made her way to Susie’s side.

“Um… is… are you okay if…” Allison stammered, trying to piece together the right words, while Susie just gave her a small impatient sigh.

“If you check on it?” Susie finished, to tired and in pain to properly fight the shorter woman. Allison nodded slowly and avoided eye contact. “Go on then.”

Allison looked up in a bit of surprise and nearly wanted to ask if she was sure, but one look at her fellow voice actresses face and Allison knew Susie just wanted to get this over with. Being very careful, the brunette peeled some of the makeshift bandages away, leaving the one covering Susie's left eye alone, and checking on the slashes. From what it looked like it wasn't much better from the last time she saw them, though they did seem to slow in the bleeding at least.

The two slashes across the actual cheek seemed rather larger than the others though and much deeper. Allison bit at her lower lip, knowing that these would need stitches if it was ever going to properly heal… and even then these would leave scars on Susie's face. The other slashes didn't seem as bad, though then again she hadn't  got a better look at the damage to the eye just yet.

“.... I'm sorry Ms. Campbell…” Allison muttered, looking so close to crying from the feeling of guilt that just grew in her chest as she started to redress the wounds on the taller woman's face.

“... Sorry? For what?” Susie questioned, there were a few things she could think of that the olive skinned woman in front of her was apologizing for… but she couldn't place what this apology was actually for.

“If… if I hadn't distracted you… if I just… just spoke up….”

_Oh…_ Susie thought with a slight frown, ignoring how the muscle movement in her face just hurt the wound on her cheek more.

“That thing surprised us all. You couldn't have-” Susie started only to be surprisingly cut off quickly by the more timid woman.

“I'm… I'm also… I'm sorry… so sorry for taking the role of Alice from you!” Allison practically belted out, tears starting to crawl down her face. “I just… I just wanted to work _with_ you! I didn't mean… didn’t _want_ to hurt you!”

Susie was at a loss as Allison just broke down with her guilt. Susie took a glance over to Norman, hoping he would probably come over and give a hand. The projectionist however seemed to decide to sit out of it and let the girls sort this out themselves. Susie just glanced down to Allison and slowly reached out to give her a comforting pat on the shoulder.

“It's… it's alright. Really. Neither of us… neither of us had a say in what happened after all.” Susie quietly responded, the last part was more for herself then it was for Allison. Sure there was still a hint of jealousy for the smaller woman taking her role, but at the same time Susie found it harder to stay mad from how guilt ridden Allison looked about it.

Allison finally looked up, right into Susie's eye with her tears still rolling down her face. Susie couldn't help but notice that her eyes were a pretty shade of pale green. Allison herself noticed how Susie’s eye was a shade of hazel that almost seemed to glow in a more golden color with the lighting.

“I-I’m-” Allison started again only to be cut off by Susie gently shushing her.

“I know, you can stop apologizing now.”

Allison looked as if she was about to apologize again but cut herself off by rubbing at the tears on her face.

“I… I should get back to… to redressing these.” She sniffled and held up the makeshift bandages.

“Mind if I give you a hand… Allison?” Susie asked surprising the mentioned woman with her first name, before a smile started to form on her once crying face.

“Not at all Ms. Campbell!”

“Please, call me Susie.”

Meanwhile Norman sat off to the side smiling at how the two seemed to be on much better terms now. Though there was one thing that was scratching at his mind that didn't feel quite right.

_We're those scratches really that deep before?_ Unlike Allison, Norman had originally gotten a better look at the wounds on Susie’s face first… He knew her eye was supposed to be the worst out of the rest of those injuries, but from what he could remember the gashes on her cheek weren’t that large before.

Both Norman and Allison brushed off the much more pale complexion of Ms. Campbell with the simple thought of it relating to the blood loss she suffered. Even Susie was thinking along the same lines as they were.

….

“I knew that was far to easy!” Lacie shouted as she and Grant sprinted through the cleared halls of the Music Department, followed closely by a large group of multiple Butcher Gang members and assorted ink creatures.

After they drained almost all the ink from the music department and were about to activate the final pump, ink creatures started to pop up out of nowhere and came right after them. Lacie got a long cut on her arm from pushing Grant out of the way of an attack, then practically picked the accountant up and bolted down a hallway with him.

Grant was still trying to process how she seemed to be able to handle him like he was barely anything, but that didn't mean he wasn't trying to think of a way for them to lose their pursuers. The sight of a door opening a bit in front of them was both concerning but also felt welcoming at the same time.

“Lacie! On the right up ahead!” Grant decided, taking a chance seeing as the odds otherwise were not looking in their favor.

“On it Coin man!” Lacie responded as soon as she saw what Grant was talking about. She turned to it as quick as possible and practically flung Grant, as well as herself, through the door and something else in the room seemed to close it behind them. Neither of them noticed right away, to busy catching their breath to really notice, till the sound of some crates or something being pushed in front of the door behind. Turning around quickly, Grant screamed when he saw it was another one of those twisted ink figures with the glowing eyes… Lacie however seemed to be shocked, which prompted Grant to hide behind her.

The ink figure seemed to flinch a little at Grant’s scream and backed into a corner after blocking off the door, that was now being pounded on by the other ink creatures on the outside. Lacie caught onto this behavior and taking in a deep breath she took a few steps closer to the figure, even with Grant grabbing onto her arm.

“Are you crazy? It’s another of those… those **things**! What if-” Grant started only to be cut off by Lacie, turning her attention to the figure and speaking out to it.

“Hey there, thanks for giving us a hand.” Lacie gave the figure a small smile, ignoring the shocked look on Grant’s face in favor of looking at the figure’s glowing orange eyes widening a little in surprise.

_“You’re… uh… you’re welcome ma’am.”_ The ink creature responded, it’s voice sounding a little more masculine through it’s slightly echoed voice. It, or he rubbed at one of his arms and seemed to almost want to go deeper into it’s corner to hide. Especially as the banging and a few of the noises increased outside the door.

Grant, not feeling comfortable at all with this looked around the room only to curse his luck that it was very much a dead end. A simple storage room with the only way of escape being blocked off in favor of protection.

“What's your name?” Lacie asked the inky humanoid, still remaining civilized yet taking caution… she's already dealt with an ink creature being docile before it went flying off the deep end, she was determined to not let that happen again.

_“August… August Woodhouse ma’am.”_

“Pleasure to meet you August. Names Lacie Benton, and the suit with no manners is…” Lacie paused to take a quick glance at the mildly offended look on Grant’s face, trying to remember his actual name outside of the nickname she was using. “... Grant… Coi- no it was Co something… am I close?”

“Grant Cohen…” Grant corrected, still really uncomfortable but was starting to lower his guard a bit as this… August, wasn't attempting to attack them.

“Yeah that. Thanks. Anyways, I don't think I've heard ya around the lower levels, and Grant clearly never worked with you in finances. Where'd you get placed?” Lacie continued to question, taking a seat on one of the storage crates not blocking the door. August was a little hesitant, but finally decided to answer.

_“I work in the music department… I play the trombone when it's needed.”_

Lacie gave a thoughtful hum while Grant blinked processing what was just told to him.

“Wait a minute… you're an employee here?”

_“Hard to tell at the moment, I know.”_ the former trombone player responded, fully aware of how messed up he looked.

Lacie, when August spoke, almost gave Grant a look that read “Are you an idiot” before she just realized… she never told him about how the twisted spider toon she had first met was once an employee as well.

“I done screwed up on that one…” Lacie muttered more to herself as she quietly started to call herself an idiot, while August gave her a confused look… though Grant seemed to be lost in his own mind as he thought back to the first ink creature he encountered… and only now was it registering in his head that it sounded like an employee he would run into a few times when walking through the toy department. Horror started to settle into his mind as that one dawning realization brought about a more horrifying one.

_But… But before I encountered that… that thing with his voice I… I saw that man dead! How… oh my god…_ Grant thought as the horrific conclusion came to him as he stared at August, then slowly stared at the door where the banging against it was starting to lesson.

“They’re… they’re all dead.”

“What?” Lacie asked, not really getting it as Grant seemed to collapse to his knees, and seemed to be having a mental breakdown from what he just realized.

All the while August was now just quietly questioning his own decision for helping these people as he watched the accountant break down and the mechanic go over to try and calm him down.

_Maybe when those things outside stop trying to get in I’ll just go out and try to figure out what the hell happened to me... Away from these weird people._

….

Joey was both intrigued but also rather crossed at the results of his attempts to see if he could speed things up. Intrigued as after making the white blotches face off against the other beings in the studio, and how most of them now had small amounts of black forming in them. However he was crossed because a majority of them seemed to also fight back, destroying some of his creations and forcing them to reform elsewhere.

“Well, at least none of them are by the exit anymore.” Joey sighed to himself and rubbed at his head. Taking one more look over the entire layout one more time he decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a brief break from his work, plus that coffee maker he splurged on in the break room was practically calling his name at this point.

….

Hunkered down in, what was pretty much a break room, Wally excused himself to the not far off restroom to check on his head injury. Sure he could have gotten one of the others to check it out, but he damn well wanted to know how bad it actually was for himself… plus he _really_ didn’t want to disturb Sammy at the moment. The music director was in one of his “Let me take my goddamned break in peace” moods, and Wally knew better then anyone to just let the guy have his alone time when he was in that mood. The ex-janitor was already having a bad enough day already, thank you very much!

Closing the door behind him, Wally made his way over to the sinks and looked at himself in the mirror. He had to calm himself down a little when he saw his now ghost white skin, and how his freckles had a greyish tint against it and still stuck out quite a bit.

_Alright, time to see how bad it really is…_ Wally thought to himself after taking a deep breath, seeing how much ink was matting down and blacking out his curly red hair around the makeshift bandage. Quietly bracing himself as he slowly undid the knot that held the ripped sleeve in place, Wally slowly began to remove said article of cloth to get a better look at his head injury. Once it was off Wally had to squint a little at it as it seemed to be covered by a blotch of ink, but he could make out a bit of the soon to be scar’s shape under it a bit.

_I thought Susie cleaned it up a bit?_ Wally internally questioned before shrugging it off and turning the water on in the sink. He started off by washing his own hands a little before moving onto the cloth that was used to bandage his wound, after all he would have to probably tie it back on and it would do to have it be less sticky and gross.

He started to whistle a tune as he scrubbed at the cloth only to pause when the water running through the makeshift bandage ran more of a distilled black. He was expecting more red but… but there could have just been more ink there then Sammy and Susie thought.

_Yeah… Yeah that’s all, nothing to worry about._ Wally tried to calm the growing panic in his chest  as he finally finished getting the ripped sleeve as cleaned as possible and left it to dry so he could get the rest of the ink off himself. As he splashed the water on his face, he let out a hiss of pain when some of it touched his wound, but still pushed on trying to get as much ink off his face and hair as possible.

The red haired man eventually stopped when the pain got to much for him. Looking up again, just to see how much he was able to get off, Wally froze when he saw that the ink over his wound seemed to still be there, looking unfazed by the water at all.

“That… that shouldn’t still be there…” Wally breathed, panic coming back much worse when he saw a bit of ink drip down from the spot. Dripping straight from his wound and just above his right eye. As he tried to deny what he was seeing as real, Wally’s hands went up to the top of his head, attempting to just grab some of his hair… but instead touching two bumps that were hidden by his hair. Two bumps that were definitely not there before. Two bumps… that almost felt like they had a sharp point to them.

Wally choose that moment to finally scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEHOLD, CHAOS GREMLIN SHAWN!! Haha, but no in all seriousness that's what I've been mentally calling him since I began writing this story.
> 
> Also we're getting to a part I'm REALLY excited to write~ So expect another quick update sometime soon.


	7. Chapter 7: Growing Fear

Sammy had had a very long day. First he was expected to make not one, not two, but five whole new songs. Five whole songs for the upcoming short… with a god awful deadline. Then there was all the distractions and people coming in and out all day, practice with the band for the songs on the current short…. then the Ink machine finally decided to flood the whole studio. Now there were ink creatures after them, his best friend Norman might be dead, he's stuck with two of the most annoying people in the whole studio and god knows how long they've really been here.

Right now all the music director wanted to do was just close his eyes for a bit and forget all the bull shit that's happened. Sure a nice hot meal would be good as well but like hell was he going to eat any of the bacon soup cans they had around. So when they had found the break room, the first thing Sammy did was grab a chair, position it against the wall and close his eyes after setting the axe next to him.

“Only wake me if more of those things try to come after us.” Was what he told the others before he started to take his nap. Thankfully for him no one seemed to disturb that rest, though the faint sound of darts being played was a little annoying but easy to tune out. 

Then Wally screamed, and Sammy jolted up, snagged his axe and rushed for the bathroom that the ex janitor was in. Shawn seemed to beat Sammy inside and was already looking around the bathroom frantically for enemies that weren’t there… while Sammy took notice of Wally sitting against a wall, shaking and holding his head.

“Where be the inky bastards?!” Shawn shouted, brandishing the wrench as he looked around the entire bathroom. Thomas slowly crawling in and over to Wally’s side while Sammy noticed his ripped sleeve drying on the sink basin.

“You okay Wally?” Thomas asked, resting a hand on the younger man’s shoulder but unable to get him to calm down enough. Especially since Wally seemed to be so freaked out that a few tears seemed to be rolling down his cheeks. “Wally, come on kid talk to me. Are you okay?”

As Thomas was trying to get Wally to respond, Sammy frowned seeing nothing amiss that would make the trainee freak out so much.

“Franks what the hell?” Sammy questioned in a tired tone, he was half tempted to berate the trainee before pausing when he noticed the surprisingly large amount of ink on Wally’s forehead. “Franks… where did all that ink come from?”

“I don’t be seeing what you mean Sam.” Shawn mentioned, looking to the music director that just shot him a glare.

“It’s Sammy you loud mouthed toy maker… But I was talking about Franks, for your information.” As Sammy mentioned this, Thomas finally noticed the large ink blotch above the red haired man’s eye… but a definite lack of it everywhere else on his face.

“Wally?” Thomas asked as gently as possible, using his one good arm to reach up and gently try to rub some of the ink off, avoiding the injury as much as possible… only to find more ink dripping down as if to replace the ink that was taken away. Thomas practically felt his heart stop when he realized… Wally’s head wound was dripping more of the ink from it. “Oh my god.”

Sammy himself was speechless after he got closer for a better look. He had honestly no clue what to do, and even Shawn was having a little difficulty trying to pinpoint the right things to say in this situation.

“.... Maybe we be needing to scrub at it more?” The Irish toy maker hesitantly offered. The offer only seemed to make Wally shrink a little more into himself muttering something that even Thomas, who was right next to the younger man, had trouble hearing but was at least able to make out a soft no.

“Hey, Wally look at me.” Thomas tried, giving Wally’s shoulder a small shake and seemed to finally get the young man’s gaze on him. Looking into Wally's normally chocolate brown eyes, Thomas saw how they almost seemed like they were beginning to darken a little more in color. Thomas nearly froze once he noticed but steeled himself up as he knew it was more important to get Wally to calm down then freak out anymore.

“... Look Wally, I’m gonna level with you… No one knows what the hell is going on anymore. But god damn it, you can’t be breaking down on us now kid. Sure there’s…. There’s ink coming out of your head now… I have no idea where I’m going with that one but screw it, all the shit going down right now is bad. People are dead, those things are running around out there and now this. But god damn it if there was ever a time to want to “Get outta here” now is the perfect time to focus on that instead of shutting down because of the bullshit that’s happening.”

“Wow, never took ya to be a motivational speaker Tom.” Shawn spoke up after a moment of silence after Thomas finished his whole speel to try to get Wally to calm down… and immediately got two sets of glares on him.

“And you ruined it Shawn…” Thomas sighed deeply. 

“I swear to god Flynn, of all the times to make jokes this is the worst moment!” Sammy groaned in annoyance as he rubbed a hand down his face. 

“Hey now! I just be making an observation! If all o’ you took it as a joke then the shame goes to you!” Shawn protested, only getting a scoff from Sammy while Thomas just rubbed at his head from the continuously growing headache.

Wally, now seeming to be a little less in shock, was looking between the others as Sammy and Shawn seemed to be getting into an argument and Thomas just seemed to be completely done. It all just seemed so normal at that moment, sure the people in this scenario were different and in different places, but damn… it just felt like another day at Joey Drew Studios to the red haired trainee. Despite the fact he was still pretty shaken up about what he had found earlier, Wally found himself laughing a little at what was going on around him.

“Hey see now, we got the lad to laugh! That’s a step in the right direction if’n ya ask me!” Shawn grinned and gave an “I win” type of look to Sammy, who looked like he was contemplating if it was worth using the axe on one of the only other able bodied people in their small group.

“Keep pushing me Shawn, I dare you at this point.” 

“And like that I’m suddenly much more certain that either Sammy, or Shawn will somehow be the death of me at this point.” Thomas sighed even deeper than before. 

“Hey, better something ya know than… than an unknown getting ya in the end, huh?” Wally offered, sniffling a little as he took one of his hands off his head and one of the little sharp points there to wipe at his face. Wally did stiffen slightly as he removed his hand, paranoid about how the others would react if they noticed them, but thankfully they seemed to be to small for the others to notice so he was in the clear… for now.

“Don’t go digging my grave already Kid.”

“Hey I’m just saying. Then if ya did die you could find a way to come back and know just who to go after!” Wally, slipping into a bit more of a better mood leaned in to Thomas as if about to tell him a very important secret. “Personally, I’d be messing with Sammy the most. Moving his music sheets to different places, playing with some of the instruments really bad on purpose. I’d be the one distraction he couldn’t get rid of then.”

“Now don’t you go thinking of digging your own grave.” Thomas gave Wally a joking push and a smirk. The older man was just glad that Wally was, in a way, back to normal… though the continued presence of the ink dripping down his head was still a great concern.

“Wouldn’t even dream of it Tom!” Wally grinned, his use of the nickname Thomas never asked for got him a surprisingly happy look from Shawn, who quit his bickering with Sammy just to do so, and an annoyed one from the handyman.

“You keep calling me that and _ I’m _ going to be the one digging a grave  _ for  _ you, kid.” 

“Right! Never mind that then!” Wally nervously laughed, sure he felt like Thomas was joking but at the same time Wally could barely tell if he was being serious. 

Sammy, though he didn't really look it, was actually pretty relieved to see Wally acting all back to normal. It…. it really bugged him to not see the ex janitor not trying to be his usual, annoyingly optimistic self. Still, unlike Shawn and Thomas, Sammy could tell there was something else that was making Wally so on edge… but the music director couldn't tell what it was aside from how Wally's injury was bleeding ink now. Speaking of…

“Well now that you're no longer a sniveling mess, you might as well finish cleaning up.” Sammy drawled, turning on his heels and making way for the door.

“And where do ya think you're going Sam?” Shawn practically demanded, only to get a tired glare from the music director.

“First off, its Sammy to you. Secondly, I  _ was  _ trying to nap earlier, I would very much like to get back to the blissful state of not having to deal with any of you.” Sammy sneered as he just let the door close behind him to go back to his nap.

Shawn let out an annoyed huff then turned to Wally.

“If in ya need to take your mind off anything, ya can help me set something up to mess with the grouch out there. When ya be ready that is.”

“You don't even have to ask on that one!” Wally laughed as Shawn gave him a mock salute before following after Sammy to the other room. 

Thomas however seemed to stay by the red haired trainees side. Even with the others already in the other room Thomas stayed with Wally.

“Uh… aren't… you going to go join them? I mean I won't be long and-” Wally started, not really wanting to try to get a better look at the sharp bumps on his head with someone else around…. but got cut off by Thomas.

“I need a moment away from them as well kid…” Thomas sighed but also gave Wally a sideways glance. “Besides… you might need a hand checking those out.”

Wally froze and turned to stare at Thomas… who was taking a glance to the top of the younger man's head, past the inky wound and somewhere past his hair. 

“You… you saw them?” Wally practically whispered, fear crawling back up.

“Kid, I'm sitting right next to you… and with the lower amount of ink on your head, well… it's kinda hard not to notice two black things in that mess you call hair.”

Wally had no idea if he was surprised at how calm Thomas was about this… or that he actually hadn't brought this up to the others earlier.

….

Norman, Susie and Allison, after their rest and checking of injuries, all finally began to move again. Looking around, all three couldn't even tell what floor they were on…. let alone if they were even close to an exit. By now they were just doing a bit of guesswork as they wandered through the halls aimlessly.

“How long have we even been here in this damned studio?” Susie questioned, rubbing at her head as a bit of a headache began to form. She felt like it had slowly been getting worse recently as they passed through another unfamiliar hall, finding no stairway or hint to a more familiar location.

“Little more than half a day by my guess…” Norman responded, frowning deeply as he opened up a door and finding nothing more than a storage closet. 

“Why did Mr. Drew have to make this studio into such a maze?” Allison questioned with an annoyed groan. This was about the tenth door they tried while looking for a staircase and still they couldn't find what they were looking for. “Wouldn't it be more sensible to have all the staircases together for all the floors?”

“You’d think the sensible solution would be to have all the staircases together… but Joey seems to take what's sensible and tosses it out the window.” Susie retorted in annoyance.

“Be glad the music department, and toy departments are close enough to one another.” Norman sighed, knowing fully well how horribly planned out these halls seemed to be for the basic employees. To complicated and hard to traverse through. Only made worse when pipes would burst or… like now… when the studio has been flooded.

_ Wait a minute… why would anyone build a studio like this?  _ Norman thought as a realization slowly started to dawn on him. 

“Norman?” Allison questioned, noticing how quiet the projectionist had gotten as well as the horrified look that crossed his face.

“... This studio was built up as a death trap…” Norman muttered out loud.

“I would think that’s almost obvious by this point…” Susie pointed out, her uncovered eye tiredly looking around as one of her hands continued to rub at one of her temples. Even Allison seemed to agree with Susie’s point.

“No, no I mean… Look I know you two haven’t been around the studio for as long as Sammy and I have been… but after the old head animator left nearly eight years ago now, Mr. Drew had insisted on expanding the building to what it is now. Now I as well as many of us long time workers have always just thought it was from the success of all the Bendy shorts, and to house more workers… while Sammy just thought Mr. Drew was just losing his mind. Thinking back now I think Sammy was actually right in those thoughts, after all we both witnessed how he seemed to build every new floor into a maze as well as converting older floors into bigger, but more confusing paths.” Norman explained, his mind drifting off to the day the head animator, Joey’s best friend and co owner, had stormed out of the studio… and how different Joey had been after that… then drifting off to how Joey had started to insist certain areas be built not long after. None of it had been normal, let alone comforting at the time but no one really questioned it. Now was different.

“So… So you think Mr. Drew was… was planning to do all of… all of this since then?” Allison stammered, disbelief and fear beginning to build after hearing everything. She really didn’t want to believe someone would do something like this… but from everything they’ve seen so far and how much trouble they were having just getting out she wasn’t going to just brush it off either.

“I don’t know for sure… but sadly I do find it a little to suspicious.” Norman stated, yes he wasn't entirely sure if what he thought was correct or not… but it was to much of a coincidence for it not to be true.

“Then we won't… know for… for...” Susie started before seeming to stumble and use the wall as a support. Her single eye clenched tightly in pain.

“Susie!” Allison shouted in shock at how her fellow voice actress seemed to slowly slide down the wall as the pain she felt made her feel like her head was spinning. Norman hurried over, and checked around the hall really quick to make sure they were in the clear, before helping Susie into the storage room they recently looked into. 

“Allison, move one of those boxes please.” Norman ordered as evenly as he could, freaking out wouldn’t help at all in this situation after all. With a shaking nod of affirmation Allison found a good sized crate and pushed it with all her might into the open. Once that was done, Norman helped sit Susie down on the box, but the voice actress still held onto him as if he was a life line at the moment. 

“Susie, I need you to let go for a moment please.” Norman gently pleaded before gently peeling her hands off his shirt, only to have her hold onto one of his hands tightly. Allison slipped over and offered one of her own hands to Susie in an effort to help Norman. Thankfully Susie took hold, and Allison did her best not to let out a pained hiss from how tight the grip was.

“You…. you have a… a strong grip there Susie…” Allison bit out, just as Norman was able to slip his hand out of Susie's grip and move it to gently rub at her back. Both of them were doing their best not to panic at the moment, trying to figure out what was causing the woman so much pain… however something caught Norman’s attention before they could even begin questioning what was wrong. 

Some sort of white spots  were pretty clear through Susie’s naturally raven black hair. Two of them to be specific, and seemed kinda small enough to miss at a glance… but too different to properly blend in. They looked like two small little triangles on either side of her head… and when Norman just attempted to touch one, mostly to see if it was just something that was just sitting there, Susie let out a wince of pain.

From the wince, Allison took better note of the strange things on Susie’s head by shifting the black hair around one of them them just a little… only to gasp in shock as she saw it was coming  **out of Susie’s head.**

“Oh my god.” Allison gasped in horror, her one free hand going to cover her mouth. Norman covered his own mouth, preventing himself from saying anything or even making a noise as he saw as well.

“What's… what’s…. wrong…?” Susie weakly asked as she forced her one eye open just a little, her vision going blurry and the pain still making itself well known… until it became to much and the black haired woman passed out, and became oblivious to the world around her.

Norman and Allison on the other hand were terrified as they had to catch Susie to keep her from falling over… and saw that the white things were growing little by little and forming horns.

….

“So let me get this straight…You believe all these ink monsters, no offense August,” Lacie started, looking Grant dead in the eyes but paused and glanced over to the resident ink creature in the room as she mentioned him.

_ “Considering you were all chased by a bunch of them and my current situation, I completely understand.”  _ August responded before making a motion for Lacie to continue.

“... Are all employees that died from the ink pipes.” Lacie concluded. Grant nodded and gave a weary glance over to August. The ink person was unreadable aside from his glowing eyes… that seemed like they were at least thinking the information over. “I mean… It’s a theory to what's going on I’ll give ya that.”

“I know for a fact Lacie! That toy department worker… Robert or Bob or, whatever. I know he was dead! I saw his lifeless body and yet he spoke to me looking like… like August over there!” Grant insisted, he know the guy was named Robert but forgot if he went by a nickname or not… he wasn’t  _ that  _ close to the man after all, but still talked to him enough to remember his voice and face.

“I don’t know Grant… I mean, the dead coming back as ink creatures part feels a little hard for me to swallow to be honest. Yet it does make sense given everything… Any input on this August?” Lacie asked, looking to the trombone player for a few answers.

_ “Can’t really tell you if I’m dead or not ma’am. I feel pretty alive and clearly I’m able to talk and everything… but I… I do remember…”  _ August trailed his glowing gaze lowering a bit as he dug into… unpleasant memories. Taking a deep breath he continued soon after.  _ “I remember being in the recording room with all the instruments. I was in there doing a bit of practice with a few others of the band before we were gonna head home for the day. Gotta make sure we don’t put Mr. Lawrence into a worse mood then usual by screwing up a song after all. Anyways… as we were in the middle of practice when I heard something going off. I remember putting my trombone down and looking up then… then a pipe burst right above us. I… I vaguely remember Ruth, the piano player, trying to break the door down so we could get out but… Next thing I remember is waking up about two floors up and in the middle of an ink puddle that… actually turned out to be me. No idea how any of that happened, confused as all hell and feeling all sorts of wrong… Can’t really say much else though so… sorry.” _

To Grant that was more than enough proof for his “Theory” as Lacie put it, while Lacie’s eyes were wide and she soon felt this “Theory” wasn’t as far fetched anymore. Sure there did seem to be a few holes in the story, but… she herself knew how bad the Music department got with the ink flow. She just had to put the pieces together to at least paint a pretty clear picture of what might have happened… which lead to another sudden thought.

“I need to get back to the lower levels!” Lacie exclaimed, already pushing some of the barricade out of the way as the banging outside had ended a little while ago.

“Wait, what?! I thought the plan was to get out of here!” Grant exclaimed, trying to get the mechanic to stop her frantic breaking down of the makeshift barricade.

_ “Okay, no offence on my part now for you ma’am… But what in the actual hell would make you want to go down there after all this?! Just go with the possibly crazy accountant and get out of here!”  _ August exclaimed, also attempting to stop Lacie from trying to get out to go with her crazy idea. The ink turned employee didn’t even pay attention to the offended glare he got from the accountant.

“My boss! Bertram! I need… I need to know…” Lacie trailed, her eyes starting to water as she mentally heard the echo of her boss’s screams and saw the ink pushing him into the machine… had… had the air always been thick in this room? Why was she having trouble breathing right now?

When he saw Lacie begin to hyperventilate Grant acted immediately on autopilot and wrapped his arms around her, gently rubbing her back and holding her head close to his chest. The latter being a little hard to do as she was only an inch shorter than his average 5’8” height, but seeing as she was already bending down a bit in an attempt to catch her breath he just made due.

“Lacie! Lacie it’s alright! You’re not there, you’re alright!” Grant exclaimed, only half knowing what he was doing as he was frantically trying to get Lacie to calm down. He hadn’t seen her get this worked up at all during his time with her… and quite frankly it scared him as she seemed to be so collected, so confident and now… now she was looking so fragile.

_ “Ma’am… Lacie, breath! Deep breath in, slow breath out!”  _ August instructed, digging through some memories of once seeing someone else in the band going through something similar and seeing how they handled it. He wasn’t completely sure if it would apply to whatever she was going through now… but damn it he needed to try something.

Lacie seemed like she only barely heard either of them as she shakingly tried to follow August’s instructions with her breathing. It was hard to get into the rhythm as she just had trouble drawing herself out of the horrors she saw down below. However once she did start getting into the rhythm she soon found herself slowly beginning to tear up. Feeling the need to hide the tears the mechanic buried her face into Grant’s shoulder just as the first few began to crawl down her face.

Both Grant and August felt like they were at a loss on what to do now as Lacie just started to cry it out.

….

Joey wheeled himself back into his office, actually flipping a proper light on now as he re entered and went back over to his ink model of the studio, a fresh cup of coffee in his hand now as well.

“Well, time to see what I missed.” Joey took a sip of the coffee after speaking out loud to himself and checking in on the layouts of the studio before almost spitting it back out in surprise at seeing how one of the white blotches was now shaping something new. It seemed like it was being carried by the other two white blotches, of which only one of them seemed to have a hint of the darkness in them, but it was forming into a familiar shape with both horns and a halo slowly seeming to push their way out of the once white spot in the ink studio.

“I missed the birth of one of the stars?! Ugh, note to self… don’t take a long break next time one gets close to being formed.” Joey sighed to himself and looked it over again, greatly disappointed to see that the black ink that had taken over was quickly changing to a more grey color as the form shaped itself more. That was one inconvenience but at least he got  _ one  _ of the main characters he was looking for.

Feeling excited he checked the larger group and found a few hints of what was forming on the one with the most dark in it. However, Joey knew what these hints would lead to, and quite frankly it only made him feel like a child on christmas as he recognized what was coming.

“Oh, oh this one I am not going to miss for the world.”

Being to distracted with the fact that the main star was being formed, he never thought to check on anything else in the studio as he excitedly took another sip from his coffee mug.

….

Pain, stiffness, agony and cold were just a few minor things to describe how Bertram was feeling. Going onto the major points however? The engineer felt like every part of him was ripped from their proper places and stuck back together improperly. He felt cold, dripping,  **foul** ink dripping from these misplaced pieces and twisting  **inside** his malformed body as well. His body… Was it even something he should really be associating with who he is supposed to be?

No, this wasn’t a body. This mechanical creation, this colossal wonder he created, he built up with **his** hands… this was more like a prison. A casket, or a tomb perhaps, but not a body. Oh he knew what happened. How could the great Bertram Piedmont not remember what lead to this current predicament he was stuck in? 

The feeling of the accursed ink  **swimming** and  **swirling** within this tomb that dared to make itself his new body was all he needed to remember. The sparks of electrical energy that coursed through to move one of his now many limbs helping cement the image clear in his mind.

_ Oh, Mister Drew… Not only have you  _ **_destroyed_ ** _ what was going to be my greatest work, you’ve also destroyed your own work in the process. No that’s not quite it now is it? This is part of a bigger piece of work, a bigger stage for you now isn’t it? Well now… You may think you’ve gotten away with your plan. But you’ve seemed to overlook one thing. I’m. Still. HERE! _

Mechanical arms slammed into the ground with a force that shook the entire room as panels opened on the Carousel revealing a much larger, decapitated head of one Bertrum Piedmont. 


	8. Chapter 8: Downfall

Wally finished cleaning up as best he could, Thomas giving him a hand before they finally checked out what decided to start forming from Wally’s head. Luckily the little nubs didn’t seem to have gotten any bigger and could still easily be overlooked… but for how long was the question.

“Pretty sure you’ve got horns coming in kid… If you had these before all this shit then it’s no wonder you wore that hat all the time.” Thomas had muttered when checking them out while helping Wally get cleaned up and the inky wound covered once again.

“The hat was a gift from my dad, not because of… of horns or anything like that…” Wally responded while rubbing at one of the budding in horns, not really appreciating the possible attempt at a joke from the older man. Thomas just shrugged as best he could and the two started to get the handyman’s arm adjusted as well as at least a little cleaned up from the ink on it.

“Well, don’t get me wrong but I’m pretty sure Lawrence would beg to differ on that front.” Thomas chuckled slightly at the slight grimace that crossed Wally’s face.

“I swear Sammy has it out for me at this point. I mean, seriously the guy had me running to and from his department like crazy. Don’t even get me started on when he would claim that I missed a spot or if I dropped my keys somewhere. Not my fault those things are more slippery than soap and- Hey… when did you get a cut on your arm?” Wally questioned after spotting the mentioned cut during his rant about the music director. Thomas took only a glance and saw a small portion of his sleeve had been cut through and a thin trail of blood came from a cut on the once dislocated arm. When did he get that?

“Guess it happened during the Earthquake… Never really noticed it through the rest of the pain I guess.” Thomas half shrugged as they adjusted the impromptu sling back into place. “It’s small so no need for concern.”

“I guess… Anyways where was I?” Wally muttered before asking Thomas,  just where he was going with his rant before he cut himself off earlier.

“You’re inability to keep your keys in your pocket and how Sammy gets pissed at you.” Thomas replied, a small hint of a smile crossing his face as Wally seemed to be relaxing more if he was this determined to rant about his time working as a janitor. Normally the handyman would tune the kid out during these rants, but seeing as it was either this or have the kid being paranoid or freaking out Thomas was willing to lend an ear for the younger man.

Outside the room the music director was trying to get back to taking a nap while the toy maker paced around, waiting for the two handymen to finish what they were doing.

“I tell ya Sam… I don't like what be happening to the lad.” Shawn spoke in probably the quietest voice he's done since the whole mess began. 

“What part of “Let me take a freaking nap” did you not understand Flynn?” Sammy sneered, keeping his eyes closed and trying not to move from his position. 

“The wanting to take a nap part. Now that I don't be getting, especially since the lad be bleeding the damned ink that caused all the bull shit outside this room!”

“I'm seriously not in the mood for this Flynn.”

“How in the hell did that even happen? What if that be happening to us as well? What if-”

“For the love of God, LET ME SLEEP ALREADY FLYNN!!” Sammy shouted, eyes finally opening again and giving Shawn the heaviest glare he could muster.

“ _ Oh _ forgive me Sam, it's not like I wouldn't mind a bit o’ sleep myself! But with the bullshit that be happening I would much rather have answers!” Shawn shouted back, and was glaring right up at the taller man.

“I wouldn’t mind having answers to questions of my own either! Are Norman and Susie alright and alive? Where the hell do those creatures keep coming from? When will Franks stop losing his keys? When can I finally just get some God damned sleep?! I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get any of those answers anytime soon or even from you, and vice versa!” Sammy listed, his voice getting louder with each question, and definitely getting both Wally and Thomas to poke their heads out of the bathroom to watch what was going on.

“Oh so you don’t be wondering if what’s going on with Wally don’t be having nothing ta do with them creatures appearing, or if it be happening to us anytime soon? Now I still be worrying about Allison ‘n all but I know the lass can handle herself and god damn am I more concerned with the fact Wally be leaking ink more than blood now!”

“There's literally nothing we can do about that! There’s nothing that answers that either! Looking for answers will get us nowhere and they aren’t going to help in getting out of this hell hole!”

“You be missing a major point I’m trying to make Sam!”

“What point? That you won’t let me sleep or that you’re-”

“WHAT IF THE LAD BE TURING INTO ONE OF THEM INK MONSTERS?!” Shawn shouted as loud as he could go, stunning Sammy and Thomas while Wally practically froze in a bit of fear. Taking a deep breath and seeing how Sammy wasn’t speaking up at all, the toymaker rubbed a hand through his wavy brown hair before crossing it across his chest. “Think about it lad… we don’t know how those things be made… and it ain’t natural at all for people to be leaking ink themselves. Not even mentioning the fact we be seeing hardly any other life aside from them beasties out there. I don’t want to see the lad become one of them things out there…”

Things went deathly silent after Shawn explained himself, especially since this was the most serious anyone had ever seen the guy. The sound of groaning outside as well as light drips of leftover ink in the pipes were the only sounds that could be heard from the room.

_ One… one of those things? I’m… I’m gonna become one of those things?!  _ Wally thought with pure horror. Not noticing at all how the dripping ink from his wound seemed to slip through a bit of the makeshift bandage, nearly getting into one of his eyes…. Or how some of the smaller ink puddles in the room seemed to ripple as if something was making them move just a little bit.

….

Susie slowly opened her eye, not recognizing her surroundings and finding herself being carried on someone's back. The pain she had felt last time she was awake seemed to have died down to a dull throbbing…. though now her head felt a little… off balance. Like someone put an oversized hat on it and it was trying to pull her head into the direction it was leaning towards. It wasn't to bad but it was noticeable. She was mildly aware of the sounds of something splashing through liquid and the feeling of something cold on her arms.

_ I thought… I had my coat on though…  _ Susie thought to herself as she lifted one of her hands into view, seeing what looked like ink covering it and dripping from the fingertips and palm. She also saw how her coat’s sleeve seemed to be wet with the fresh dark liquid and was half way up her forearm. 

_ Guess we passed through more while I was out…  _ she thought to herself as she absentmindedly rubbed her fingers together, trying to get them to lose the excess liquid.

“Susie?” Norman’s concerned voice snapped her out of her observations, and turned her attention to the fact that the projectionist seemed to be the one carrying her.

“Norman? What…” Susie started, wanting to ask exactly what happened after she passed out, but paused as she heard the sounds from earlier continuing… only now did it finally register in her head that it was the sound of the axe hitting some of those ink creatures… but Norman was here with her and clearly not . “.... Who's using the axe?”

As if to answer her question Allison’s voice called out somewhere ahead of the two.

“We’re clear!”

And now Susie was lost on everything at the moment.

“We’ll… We’ll explain when we can find a safe area. I promise.” Norman spoke up, sensing the confusion from the voice actress.

“... Fine… could you at least put me down?” Susie sighed, she knew better then to argue with Norman… guy was stubborn as a mule when he set his mind to something. Though, he was also someone who would compromise if given a good enough reason.

“Are… are you sure about that?” Norman’s question made Susie narrow her eye, not understanding why Norman would ask that.

“Yes…. unless there's something you're not telling me that happened to my legs while I was out.” 

Susie knew her legs felt fine, aside from the feeling of them just falling asleep for a bit, but she was curious about the projectionist’s concern. Before she could get an answer she got surprised by Allison, who had hurried over and was now checking Susie over.

“You’re awake! How do you feel? Anymore pain anywhere? Light headed? How many fingers am I holding up?” Allison questioned quickly, holding up one hand in Susie's line of sight with three fingers raised. The voice actress couldn't help but notice how fresh ink seemed to be splattered on the smaller woman's hands… and how she seemed to have gotten a little more pale since Susie was last conscious.

“Three… and I feel fine really.” Susie insisted while gently lowering Allison’s raised hand.

“Nothing feels… strange or off?” Allison asked, her voice lower in tone with a great degree of worry in her voice.  Now if Susie wasn’t sure they were keeping something from her, she was definitely suspecting it now.

“Alright… What the hell happened after I passed out?” 

Allison flinched and, from what Susie could tell, she seemed to glance towards Norman for either help or confirmation. Norman sighed quietly.

“... Susie… we have no idea on what  _ exactly  _ happened…” Norman tried, struggling to find  **something** to explain what happened without giving Susie a panic attack. Susie however seemed to be a bit impatient at the moment.

“Just tell me the best you can. Oh, and  _ please  _ put me down while you're at it.” Susie insisted, her tolerance levels slowly dropping the longer they kept her in the dark. Norman hesitated but did finally set her down on to her feet as gently as possible. Susie, as soon as she was on her feet again, shook each leg out a little bit and felt no pain in either leg. Not to mention neither of them felt like they fell asleep so that was a plus as well.

“Susie… just… rub a hand over your head for a moment…” Norman finally said, unable to look Susie in the eye while Allison continued to look at her with a worried expression. Susie frowned at this but complied, after shaking some of the dripping ink off her hand first. She didn't get far before she felt… something poking out on her head.

Feeling it a little bit, it was cone like in shape with a sharp point at the end, it had to be a few inches long and… it felt smooth and solid. Giving it a bit of a pull to see if it was just something that fell onto her head, Susie let out a short cry of pain.

“What the hell?!” Freaking out now Susie looked to both Allison and Norman for answers she desperately wanted at the moment. Norman continued to avoid eye contact and seemed to cross his arms… Allison on the other hand seemed to bit at her lower lip for a moment while looking down to the floor, past the axe that was held in her hand, before finally deciding to speak again.

“There's… There’s more then just that Susie…” Allison admitted while rubbing at one of her arms. Susie noticed how the brunette’s gaze traveled up a little bit above her head. 

Quickly having both hands on her head she felt a second bone like protrusion on the opposite side of her head, it felt like it was the same size and shape as the first one… but the biggest surprise came from closer to the middle of her head. Feeling the same bone like texture both in the front, close to where her bangs swooped over her forehead, and back, and how it went a little higher up on her head then the two smaller ones. It seemed to be at a slanted angle and was leaning from the right diagonally down to the left…. and it felt like the one in the front was longer than the one in the back.

“What even  _ is  _ that?! When did this… How did this even happen?!” Susie screamed, feeling like she was beginning to hyperventilate. Allison, seeing this, passed the axe back to Norman quickly and gently, but quickly, pulled Susie’s head down to look her dead in the eye.

“Ms. Campbell I need you to breath with me now! Okay? Like this,” Allison urged before taking in a deep calming breath in through the nose, before letting it all out with a slow breath from her mouth. As Allison was getting Susie’s breathing under control, Norman had quickly grabbed a misplaced chair he found and brought it over as a just in case… As soon as he set it down for the ladies however, not far off he could hear a few more of the ink creatures popping up and already seeming to make their way for them.

“I believe we just lost whatever time we had!” Norman got the axe ready, fully prepared to hold the creatures off until both Allison and Susie could get a safe distance away. Susie's earlier fear ended up being switched from what happened to her to the same creatures that had been attacking them… the same creatures that struck her face… 

_ Wait…. did… did that strike… do this to me?  _ Susie thought as a bit of realization started to creep in. None of this even started happening till after she got hit by one of those inky torsos that had been chasing after them. She was vaguely aware of Allison trying to urge her to get moving, but all the changed voice actress heard was the now familiar groans of the crawling ink creatures… and all she could see was a growing amount of red in her vision as they got closer.

Barely thinking, Susie rushed to Norman and pried the axe from the projectionist’s hands with a surprising amount of strength. Despite the amount of protests and attempts to stop her, Susie didn't hear any of them as she was far to focused on the monsters coming towards them… and far to focused on cutting them all down into the dark puddles they originated from.

Raising the axe above her head as one got in close she swung down with a scream of pure rage.

….

Eventually after they calmed Lacie down, August and Grant got dragged along in trying to find their way to the lower levels of the building. Well… mostly Grant, August was just sticking with them to see if he could find anyone else from the music department. 

_ “The minute I find someone else from my department, or I get back to the department, I’m gone.”  _ August had stated before they left the safety of the storage room.

Now it was all guess work where everything was once again as both Lacie and Grant had been running blind to get away from the ink creatures… It really didn’t help at all as what should have been familiar halls to get to the lower levels from the department seemed to have changed. It wasn’t very obvious at first but now that they got a really good look at some of the halls… it looked like they were  _ in a hallway that wasn’t supposed to be on this floor.  _

“Lacie…” Grant started, hoping he wasn’t the only one noticing how the hall they were in looked like it was taken straight from the toy department… that’s supposed to be on the higher floor levels. The shelves that lined the walls looked like they had been there for a while, and only a few of the dolls were fallen over… as well as large, almost chair sized dolls were sitting in a few places in the open. There was also a Bendy clock hanging on a wall, the little hand pointing to the 4 while the larger hand pointed a little bit above the 8 on the clock face while it’s “legs” kicked and eyes shifted slightly as the time slowly ticked on. All these things were never found or even common place on the lower floors.

“Yeah… I noticed as well…” Lacie herself had never been to the toy department during her entire time working at the studio… but she knew the lower levels of the studio well enough to know this wasn’t supposed to be on this floor.

_ “.... Do we even know where we are right now?”  _ August straight up asked, his eyes narrowing in confusion. He knew the music department like the back of his hand…. well not his now ink covered hand, but his old human one. Regardless he knew the rest of the floor the department was on pretty well… and he was not recognizing anything on this floor.

“We… We should still be on the Music Department’s level… This isn’t supposed to be here.” Grant admitted as a sense of discomfort began to grow. Sure the layout was changed once before, but that was just for expansion of the company years ago… and now it seemed to just change in the span of half a day?

_ “Are we sure this didn’t just… I don’t know… Get moved down here by one of those toon things?”  _ August asked, finding it really hard to believe that there would be toys at all on this level of the studio.

“The toys and lack of drag marks say otherwise…” Lacie pointed out with a frown.

_ “Could have just-” _

“No, she's right. To set this up down here one would have had to drag the whole shelf, which would ruin the wooden floors. Not only that but these toys look like they haven't been moved or touched since the Earthquake… the dust around them is an easy indicator after all.” Grant cut in, having gone up to the shelf and rubbed a finger across it. There was a small layer of dust on it but it was definitely enough to show it had been here a while.

Before anyone else could say or do anything the trio heard a loud scream of anger just up ahead. Grant and August simply looking both confused down in the direction while Lacie took to running towards it. 

“Lacie, get back here!” The black haired accountant called after the mechanic. Lacie however didn't seem to pay him any mind as she ran through the hall and turned to look down a corridor… only to find possibly one of the strangest and personally horrific sights she's seen down in this hell hole.

It was a woman cutting through ink creatures, creatures who were once human mind you, with an axe like they were butter. She had short black hair that seemed to go a little bit past her chin, a long coat that looked like it was at least grey at one point underneath all the ink stains that covered it. The left side of the woman's face, the side she could mainly see, seemed to be almost completely covered up by both tan colored cloth and green cloth, in the form of makeshift bandages and gauze… though what really caught the mechanic’s eye was what was atop the woman’s head. Short white horns stuck up on her head with a sharp looking point on either side… and what looked like a broken halo seemed to be lodged into her head at an angle.

As the horned woman swung the axe through a twisted spider toon with rage seeming to still be pushing her on, Grant and August seemed to catch up to Lacie and were now seeing the same sight.

“Who in the world?” Grant spoke up, at this point he was honestly convinced that Lacie and himself were the last ones alive so far… but then again from seeing the white “ornaments” atop the woman’s head he wasn’t convinced that she was “alive” either at this point…

_ “Is that… Supposed to be Alice?”  _ August squinted a little as he took in the signature look of the “Angel from Above”, but also felt uncomfortable from how different she was.

Before “Alice” could turn to look in their direction, seeming to be breathing heavily from having swung the axe around quite a bit, a familiar tall dark colored man seemed to run up from behind the “angel” and grab onto her. Another, much smaller woman with slightly more olive skin seemed to hurry past and hold onto the other’s arms as if to get her to stop using the axe… before noticing them and turning her entire gaze to the trio.

“Allison?” Grant called, recognizing the smaller woman from some of his trips to the toy department. His voice surprising the other people and getting them to look in their direction as well. Upon seeing the horned woman’s face August’s glowing eyes lit up with recognition.

_ “Ms. Campbell? Mr. Polk?” _

Lacie, unlike the other two, seemed to be the only one out of the loop of knowing any of the other survivors… and it was just making her feel awkward now. Even more so since the other trio seemed to know her two companions as well… though “Ms. Campbell” seemed like she was ready to swing the axe at August at any moment and “Mr. Polk” seemed to be trying to figure out why August’s voice seemed to sound so familiar.

_ At this rate… I’d rather just hear a familiar voice again though…  _ Lacie thought off handedly, seeming to tune out how Grant seemed to be talking with Allison and probably trying to explain their own inky companion so they wouldn’t kill him again any time soon.

….

Jack got a little to tired of waiting for his legs to wake up, settling for crawling to get out of the sewers instead. The lights seemed to have come back a while ago, the lyricist’s vision still seemed to be blurred to the point he had to rely on his hands to feel where he was going without hitting anything.

_ Whatever hit me must have messed something up pretty good…  _ Jack thought with a touch of worry creeping over him. He may not have had the best vision in the studio and definitely needed glasses to read sheet music more recently… but the blond lyricist knew his vision was never this bad.

Through his blurred vision he could see his hands were covered in ink, strange enough but not an unusual thought or idea for the man… though his mind and concerns were more focused on how his legs didn’t work at all, and how his sight was failing him.

He barely dwelled on the thought of how  **wrong** his body was feeling… how his skin seemed to crawl continually over itself. How easy it seemed to be for his hands to carry himself, as well as how his normally trimmed nails seemed to feel longer as they made scraping noises on the ground. 

He was aware, but he just wanted to focus on the more concerning matters of his sight then how wrong everything felt. After all… how could he tell for sure if these  **wrong** feelings he had were even real, part of his imagination, or just part of the damage done from whatever had hit him.

Crawling out of the room he never once looked back… never once noticing the figure of a crushed body under a large crate that had fallen from above with one hand reaching out to where it’s favorite hat had fallen to… the favorite hat that seemed to still be on Jack’s head as he left the room behind.

….

Thomas felt like he wanted to scream. He felt the need to do so since all this bull shit began. Every time he wanted to do so however he bit his own tongue and forced himself to remain calm and level headed. 

It really didn't help at all that he felt like he was reaching his limit after first noticing the horns that began to grow on Wally's head. The kid needed help… he had to have someone help keep him calm or he would shut down… and as much as Thomas would never admit it, he had a soft heart when it came to the kid. 

_ Kid reminds me of a yappy dog with no bite.  _ Were his first thoughts on the kid when he first met Wally. Back when Thomas was just beginning his job as part of the maintenance crew in the studio and Wally was still just a janitor running between departments to clean messes up. Thomas actually enjoyed the kids presence even before he began to train the kid… it was nice to have the kid around. He took to the kid like he was a younger sibling… a sibling who was twenty two years apart in age from him sure, but Thomas never really cared to much about the little things. Well, unless they lead to big problems or were part of his job to fix.

Now with Wally in complete fear after hearing both Sammy and Shawn talk about how he was probably turning into one of those ink monsters, Thomas found himself at a loss of how to comfort him for once. The music director and toy maker never saw the horns… but Wally and Thomas sure did and there really wasn't anything they could argue against that clear amount of evidence.

So here they were, still in the bathroom but now Wally seemed like he was trying to disappear into a corner. Thomas was finding it difficult to even say something to get the kid back onto the path of being relaxed again. Hell he was having a hard time keeping relaxed as well at the possibility of Wally losing himself and becoming an ink monster.

“Wally…” Thomas started, attempting to get something started. Probably to remain in denial about what was going on.

“Leave me alone…” Wally muttered from his curled up position, burying his face further into his knees and refused to look up. Thomas frowned and bit back his own growing concerns, since he could swear he saw the little horn nubs grow a smidgen more in height.

_ Don’t panic… he doesn’t need more people freaking out on him.  _ Thomas told himself in his head as he took a deep breath and slowly turned to the door.

“.... Alright. I’ll give you some time to yourself kid…” Thomas turned his gaze down to the door handle, fighting the urge to glance over to the red haired youth. “Just… give me a holler if you need anything… But if we’re heading out again soon, I’m gonna drag you out just so you know.”

Wally made no indication he heard a word that Thomas said, though then again Thomas had already opened the door and walked out without looking at the younger man. The handyman did however noticed the concerned looks he got from both Shawn and Sammy… apparently both realizing how loud they were earlier and how both maintenance workers had definitely heard their argument earlier.

“.... How… How be the lad doing?” Shawn questioned, guilt pretty clear in his voice and eyes. Thomas just gave the toy maker a tired look.

“How well would you take hearing someone say you’re turning into a monster?” Thomas queried, the dark brown hair looking so physically tired and just done. Inside however he felt like screaming, he felt like punching a wall with everything he had… but he also just felt like sitting down and letting himself just let every little emotion he’d been holding back just flow out.

“Told you Flynn… So, I take it Franks needs a bit of time for himself?” Sammy sighed, a hint of concern crossing his face for a moment, but was otherwise drowned out by the usual annoyed look that Sammy seemed to have down to a T. 

“Yeah… That especially means do not go bugging him Shawn. Give him his space.” Thomas gave the toy maker a pointed look before walking over to another chair in the breakroom. “... I’m going to get some rest if the two of you don’t mind.”

Sammy just slowly turned to Shawn with a glare, making the brunette finally concede and keep his mouth shut as both the dark brown haired handyman and blond haired music director settled down to finally get a night of rest… Though that didn’t mean they weren’t going to have some difficulties given everything that’s now on their minds.


	9. Chapter 9: Destruction

**_Chapter 9: Destruction_ **

After a while and getting both sides to calm down, Norman, Susie, Allison, Lacie, Grant and August all, with great hesitation on both Susie and August’s part, agreed to work together. The two groups eventually had to stop and finally rest for the day when many of them felt exhaustion slowly weakening them. Though while settling everyone quietly knew that actually getting to sleep was going to be hard, due to many things that had happened around them but also from the distrust between Susie and August… well mostly Susie, August was just more fearful for his own life.

_ There may be a good chance I’m dead already… but hell if I wanna find out if I could die again!  _ August thought, sitting far away from the voice actress in the breakroom they all secured.

“I’m gonna keep watch for a while… make sure no violent ink creatures get in here.” Norman began, setting up a chair near the blocked off entrance to the room and setting the axe right next to him. “Anyone willing to keep guard after me?”

“Just give me a good push and I’ll be up to take over… Mr. Polk correct?” Grant offered, quirking an eyebrow as he questioned if he got the man’s name right… sure it sounded easy enough to remember but you never know.

“Yeah… but feel free to call me Norman, Mr. Cohen.” 

Grant gave the projectionist a solid nod before getting settled to at least try to get some rest. Many of the others soon followed after aside from both August and Susie… though Norman wasn’t going to make a fuss about it and let them fall asleep at their own pace.

_ Getting out of here’s going to be much harder than we originally thought… if the building’s layout really is changing who knows whether going up or down will actually take us to an exit…  _ Norman thought to himself, using this as a way to keep himself awake but also quietly trying to plan out what a good course of action should be for everyone to get out.

_ We’ll need more then just an axe that’s for sure. Not only that but Ms. Benton wants to check the lower levels to see… what might have happened to her boss, Bertie right? Definitely not a safe idea in the long run, especially unarmed. Then again, she does seem hesitant to even touch the axe we have now. Not that I really blame her…  _ Norman frowned and looked at his hands. There was dried ink on his hands but to him it almost looked like it was turning more into blood. How… How many former coworkers did he cut down?

Quietly Norman began to rub his hands a little, attempting to get the dried ink off as best he could without a sink or proper soap to help the process along. He was finding it difficult but not impossible as some of it did start coming off, but there was to much dried on that it was going to take a very long time at this rate.

_ Where’s a bathroom when you need one?  _ Norman thought with a quiet huff, and leaned back in his chair, and close his eyes for a moment. Only for the pain that was his hurt rib to flair up for a moment and caused him to hiss from the pain.

_ “You alright Mr. Polk?”  _ August’s voice startled the projectionist. Norman turned to the ink being that was looking at him with concern in his glowing eyes… at least, Norman was pretty sure it was concern. He had a hard time telling through the constantly dripping and shifting ink that made up the trombone player’s twisted body.

“Just an injury I got earlier flaring up is all…” Norman answered, having taking a second to calm down from his earlier surprise.

“... Did it hurt earlier as well?” Susie’s voice finally popped up, after having been quiet for a long time Norman was both glad she was finally speaking again… but also was mildly surprised to hear it as well.

“Earlier?” Norman echoed.

“When I was… when you were carrying me… did it hurt then as well?”

“... Just a little to be honest.” Norman lied, it actually hurt a lot. He wasn't going to admit how carrying Susie had agitated his hurt ribs a lot, but given the situation at the time with them all being in the open, in an unsafe location and Allison definitely not being able to carry the unconscious Susie well… he wasn't going to leave one of his friends behind. Hell given the opportunity he would still do it. He refuses to lose anyone else close to him.

Susie didn't completely know all of this… but a look of guilt did cross her face. It didn't let up at all as she looked at her ink covered hands.

“I'm sorry…”

“Don't be. Really it's nothing.” Norman insisted, trying his best to hide the pain. It was hurting more than it really should have in all honesty.

_ “Doesn't seem like nothing to me…”  _ August spoke up, glowing eyes looking towards where Norman’s hand went instinctively. Norman wanted to argue, keep denying his pain but Susie had gotten up and already made her way to his side, being a little extra aware of the additions atop her head as she knelt down.

“Norman, let me take a look please.” August’s eyes widened and glanced between both Norman and Susie.

“Really Susie, its nothing.” Norman protested, not really paying attention to August. 

“It's not nothing Norman… you got hurt by one of those  _ things  _ as well… and this,” Susie gestured to the horns and broken halo on her head. “Didn't start until  _ after  _ I got attacked. I'm not sure if that's what caused…  _ this,  _ but it's better to be safe than sorry at this point.”

Whatever August was thinking before Susie's explanation died down and the Ink man was breathing a quiet sigh of relief. Norman seemed to think it over for a bit before sighing.

“Alright… only to be safe.” 

Carefully taking his tan colored overcoat off, he was just beginning to unbutton his shirt underneath when both he and Susie, since August was at a really bad angle for it, noticed something wrong with the white shirt. Right over where he felt that off spot with his rib there was a red stain going down from it to just above his waist… but it also seemed to be fresh ink stains coming in right over the red.

“What in heaven's name?” Norman practically whispered in disbelief. Even Susie was worried as she took Norman's overcoat and looked for how they could have missed the blood… before seeing the obvious sigh of ink stains almost everywhere on it.

_ “Something bad I take it?”  _ August asked from his position away from the two, not noticing how Lacie seemed to turn a little in her sleep as if she was listening in a little more to what was going on.

“You know you could come over and see for yourself.” Susie stated in an annoyed tone as she addressed the ink figure.

_ “Personally I feel much safer over hear, away from the axe, thank you.”  _ August quickly responded, his gaze shifting between said weapon and the woman turning toon.

As Susie got mildly distracted, Norman took his mostly red stained shirt off to get a better look at what was underneath. As soon as it was off both Susie and August winced at seeing some healed up older scars on Norman's arms…. but Susie gasped in fear at seeing ink black veins spreading around where a broken rib was on Norman's chest… as well as a bit of a wound from it that was bleeding ink down his dark skin.

“Shit…” Norman cursed from both a stab of pain he felt from it as well as just looking at it. “How I never noticed this sooner… just…. damn.”

_ “Dare I ask what?”  _ August cautiously questioned, his view of the Ink veins on Norman's side blocked by Susie.

The trio never noticed how Lacie slowly sat up behind August and quietly shifted to see for herself… before finally having her presence get known from the sharp gasp of shock she took.

“What the hell is that?” Lacie asked, her eyes wide as they glanced over the inky veins she could see that were slowly spreading from Norman's injury.

Needless to say… a new theory was being made, and none of the ones still awake wanted to accept what it was slowly leading to.

….

Wally barely got a wink of sleep… hell the red haired handyman barely even moved an inch since Thomas left. Sure he would nod off every so often… but the fear of just falling asleep and suddenly losing all control made the young man jolt back awake. 

_ Just… Just stay awake. That’s all ya gotta do. Stay awake, and get outta here… then everything will just go away like a bad dream.  _ Wally thought, resting his head against the wall… and vaguely feeling the developing horns on his head hitting it a little sooner then he was expecting. Swallowing down as much of his panic as he could, Wally closed his eyes as tight as he possibly could and gripped at the black cloth around his head.

_ It’ll all just go away…  Go away… once I’m outta here... _

Ink started to pull itself towards Wally, pooling around him as he repeated the phrase in his head a few times. The ex-janitor never noticed the ink until it seemed to start crawling up his legs as if it was trying to pull him down into it. Letting out a sharp scream, Wally tried to push himself away from it only to instead fall backwards and for the ink to stop it’s crawl and start to drip off back into a simple puddle.

“Laddie? Are you alright in there?” Shawn called from outside. Wally could practically see how Shawn actually restrained himself from bursting into the room again… after all last time he went in guns ablazing there wasn’t anything worth getting so agitated over.

“I… There… Ink and….” Wally stammered, trying to piece together what happened as well and momentarily forgetting how Shawn didn’t know his current… condition to its full extent.

“I’m coming in there now.” As soon as Shawn said that and the door began to be pushed open Wally immediately remembered and panicked once again.

“N-No it’s fine! Just don’t-” 

“Don’t wha- What the Holy hell be on your head lad?” Shawn yelped as he took a good look at Wally… seeming to beat the younger man to actually telling the toymaker to stay out.

“You… you uh… see them now?”

“Laddie you got black horns sticking out of your head, that be pretty hard not to miss.” Shawn’s eyes looked a little bit above Wally’s head… a little higher then he was expecting.

“How big did they get?!” Wally shouted in panic, his hands going up to his head to feel the horns for a moment, as well as completely forgetting as well that Sammy and Thomas were outside the room, still trying to get to sleep.

“Big enough for me ta see them curving a bit and be thinking of Bendy.” Shawn winced, thinking about how much they might have hurt to grow in… but also still finding it really concerning how the younger man seemed to be the only one going through these changes.

“Oh God, why?!” Wally proceeded to bury his face into his hands and scream for a moment. It really didn’t help his mood at all to feel some of the ink that leaked out from the makeshift bandages dripping through and into his hands.

“Honest opinion, God probably not be even looking at this studio anymore with all the bullshit that be happening here.” 

“Not helping Shawn!”

“Honestly lad I don’t even know how to help in a situation like this! I be a toymaker, not a miracle worker or one of them doctors who help people with problems. Most I can do is make ya a toy or a leather belt. Hell on a good day I might be able to scrounge up some advice to give ya, but I be drawing a blank on something like growing horns and looking a bit like a cartoon character.”

As the Irish man spoke, Sammy had opened the door to both check on what was going on… as well as tell the two men to shut up, but froze once he saw Wally. It really made things more uncomfortable with the red haired man as the music director just seemed to stare at him with a confused as hell expression.

“.... I’m just going to go back to my spot.” Sammy muttered as he just backed away and slowly closed the door, Shawn just barely noticing the blond man even appearing for just a moment.

“Hey, wait Sam!” Shawn called, wanting at least someone else's help to try and make sense of this.

“Not dealing with this Flynn.” Sammy called back through the door, the sound of footsteps walking away from it being the only indication that he left.

“Sam, get your grouchy arse back in here now!”

“No! No it’s fine! Really!” Wally protested, this was really not at all what he was looking forward to. He just wanted to hide away in his corner again or even just get out of here in general. The thoughts of getting out of his specific location seemed to draw the ink in once again. This time however Shawn saw it.

“What the holy hell?!” Pulling the wrench out of his pocket, his little leather strap that he carried flinging out and onto the ground from the quick movement, Shawn practically threw the tool at the moving ink puddle. It did nothing but get Wally’s attention on it again and caused him to freak out as the ink surrounded him now… and pulled him under with a scream of fear. 

“WALLY!”

….

“What…. Just happened?” Joey questioned as he saw how the figure that was slowly forming the star of his cartoons simply sink into the floor and vanish. He had been keeping a close eye on this particular one as he wanted to see how it would form into the demon he wanted… and now it seemed to just disappear. 

“He couldn’t have just died… They splatter when they die, then reform elsewhere.” Joey began looking through the different levels, the different halls of the studio model trying to find the missing toon. The studio owner only paused on one floor when he saw the group of only one white splotch with two tainted lights, the angel and grey figure. Far to many were together and the ones that were only just turning to blackened creations seemed to be converting rather slowly… not to mention the one white splotch was just surprising at this point. Sure the two that had been with the forming demon were also a surprise, but he figured it was from the larger group…

_ I should probably give that one a raise for lasting for a while.  _ Joey thought with a hum, thinking of something as he looked through the halls a little more… before finally finding the lost star of his on the same level of the large mechanical looking creation… that was a solid grey and seemed to be slowly moving somehow.

“Oh… Oh that is actually not good. Not Good at all... God, how the hell did I overlook  _ that? _ ” 

Quickly getting to work on the layout once again, Joey was determined to get the mechanical monstrosity away from his star before it could bring any damage to him… and he just had an idea on how to kill a few birds with one stone as he brought a few sections down to a single floor.

….

Wally came up out of a large pool of ink with a deep gasp for breath as he clawed his way out and onto solid ground. Coughing and spitting out ink, Wally collapsed onto the ground for a moment to regain his bearings on what had just happened.

“... Sh… awn?” Wally weakly called out, quickly seeing he wasn’t in the bathroom anymore and he was somewhere else completely. Panic began to grow once again while realizing he was somehow in one of the much lower levels from seeing a full sized train engine resting in a large pool of ink.

“Oh no… Ooooh NO!” Scrambling further away from the large pool of ink as he began to push himself up, only to collapse back down with how exhausted his body seemed to be after the sudden teleportation he seemed to have done. No matter how much he tried to move his limbs just felt heavy now… god how he wished he had actually taken a nap now.

Closing his eyes for a moment and quietly cursing himself… it soon turned to curses of fear as the building began to shake violently once again.

“ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE?!?!” Wally screamed, managing to curl himself into a little ball to try and protect himself in case of falling debris. Closing his eyes in fear he waited till the earthquake ended once again… and soon heard the sound of wood creaking not to far away. Looking up, the trainee saw a door that hadn’t been there earlier… and he watched it for a few moments before it opened itself up and someone stepped outside.

….

The Earthquake woke everyone and had a few people scramble to more stable looking floor in the room. Allison, Susie, August and Norman, who had at least put his shirt back on before this happened, especially. Lacie and Grant both just looked annoyed and bared with it until it finally ended not to long after.

“Everyone alright?” Norman questioned, looking everyone over and ignoring how Allison and Grant both saw the blood stain on his shirt now with great concern.

_ “Heart skipped a beat or two but other then that I’m good.”  _ August confirmed, giving a thumbs up about how he was doing.

“If you’re supposedly dead how do you still have a heartbeat?” Susie pointed out, honestly giving the trombonist a heavily confused look. 

_ “Dunno, how do those other ink people without legs still technically live? Hell how Barely lives even without a head might be an even better question, but I for one am not going to question the logic behind what happened to me more than I already have.”  _

“... Never took you to be one with some bite to you Mr. Woodhouse…” Norman stated in surprise.

“Are YOU alright Norman?” Allison interrupted, feeling a little bad about it but her concern for the projectionist out weighed it as she continued to look at the stain… and seeing a bit more of an ink stain forming over the red.

“Honestly the reason behind the blood should be a bigger concern at the moment!” Grant wholeheartedly agreed.

Before Norman could speak, Lacie pulled Allison closer just as a plank from above broke down and nearly hit the smaller woman. The rest of the ceiling seemed to be slowly following that single planks lead as loud cracking began to sound out from above. Ink that was once thought to have all fallen back to the lower floors began to pour in from above and through these quickly opening gaps.

“We need to move, NOW!” Lacie shouted, getting Norman and Susie on to moving the barricade out of the way quickly and then throwing the door open. Everyone raced out of the room as quick as possible, Grant being the last one out and actually remembering to grab the axe quickly just before more of the ceiling came crashing down… a hard chunk of it coming down and hitting his back just before he finally stumbled out of the room.

….

“LADS! WALLY WAS SWALLOWED UP BY INK!!” Shawn screamed as he ran out of the bathroom. Sammy sat there with narrowed, confused eyes as he looked at Shawn while Thomas looked like he had just been woken up… and was trying to register what Shawn had just said.

“What?” Sammy’s response came quickly and in complete disbelief.

“My thoughts exactly.” Thomas agreed, eyes darted over to the music director for a moment before looking back to Shawn, who took a deep breath but still looked rather startled.

“The lad… got swallowed up by a puddle of ink.” Shawn repeated slowly to get the whole point across… and all he got in return was even more confused looks on the other men’s faces. Shawn got an annoyed expression before attempting to explain what had happened… only to be cut off by another earthquake.

“Jesus Christ another one?!” Sammy shouted as he hit the deck. 

“You’d think the After Shock would have come earlier than this!” Thomas shouted as well, bracing himself better this time and keeping his arm covered to prevent further injury to it by this point.

“If it ain’t one thing at this point, it be another piece of bullshit!” Shawn screamed in straight up anger as he braced himself as well on the most solid part of ground he could get to.

Once the building stopped shaking once again the three men all took a deep breath of relief as nothing seemed to happen… at least until the ceiling seemed like it was just starting to come down. Not to mention the ink raining down from above as the ceiling above slowly began to break apart more and more.

“Shit! Run!” Sammy shouted, grabbing the axe at his side and bolting for the door. Thomas and Shawn close behind as they poured out into the hallway… only to find a different one then what they saw before.

“Where the hell…” Shawn began only to be cut off by the loud sound of mechanical creaking and the sound of wooden structures breaking creeping in closer to their location.

“Less questions more running.” Thomas stated, using his good arm to grab Shawn’s shoulder and stand him up. Not needing to be told twice, the Irishman began running in the opposite direction from the noise… Sammy seemed to be ahead of them having only heard the noise once and instantly just saying “Nope.”

Thomas was quick to follow behind, only taking a single glance behind just in time to see something large and mechanical smashing through a wall.

_ Nope… Not gonna stick around for that mess! Joey can find another handyman to take care of all of that bullshit! _

….

Out of the room and away from the collapsing roof, Grant and the others were all trying to recollect their thoughts as well as reign in their pounding hearts… Norman more so as his injury practically fired up once again with pain. Hell… Grant’s back wasn’t doing much better, as there was a pretty good rip in the back of his suit and showing a freshly bleeding gash.

Lacie was mentally not doing so well, the thoughts of being crushed, trapped and drowning in ink once again started to build up another panic attack… however a comforting pat from Allison caught her attention.

“Are… Are you alright Ms. Benton?”

“... Shaken… Really… Really shaken…” Lacie breathed, her arms wrapping around one another before she began to rub at them to try and calm herself down.

_ “Hey, Mr. Cohen… How are you holding up?”  _ August asked, looked back to the accountant who was now holding the axe in one hand while his other arm folded itself across his chest to get a feel of the fresh wound on his back.

“In pain at the moment…” Grant hissed out as he pulled his hand back to see blood on it. “... and…. And in need of medical attention.”

_ Good lord the expenses are just piling on at this rate!  _ Grant thought to himself after he spoke. Honestly he was pretty sure this was the only way he was keeping himself sain this entire time… just thinking about math and expenses of everything going on in the studio still.

“You… You doing okay Susie?” Norman wheezed, holding onto his injured side as the pain seemed to not want to settle down after what had just happened.

“You should be worrying more about yourself at the moment Norman…” Susie pointed out, fearing that the pain might be related to what she felt before she blacked out… before the crooked halo and horns grew out of her head.

“Uh…” a familiar voice caught the group's attention from a good distance away. Slowly pushing their self up into a seated position just before a set of stairs leading into an ink filled room, it was a young man with darkening red hair that looked like it was usually curly, but was wet down to the point it couldn’t stick up where ever it usually would. Skin pale as Susie’s at the moment, was marred by dark grey freckles across his face, as well as the ink that practically covered his whole right eye and seemed to continually drip from underneath a ripped piece of black cloth, as well as the ink covering his forearms. His outfit was standard for a typical handyman around the studio, aside from the ink that seemed to cake almost every inch of the clothing that is. The most noticeable feature however was the pair of curving black horns that grew at least four inches above the young man’s head.

“Wally?!” Susie and Allison both exclaimed at the same time in surprise, recognizing the young man pretty quickly. Hell Norman was also surprised to see the young man… but was also greatly concerned with how he was looking.

“The Janitor?” Lacie questioned, never really learning the young Frank’s name… but knew that’s what he usually did at least. Grant just simply nodded to Lacie’s question, stunned from seeing another person being changed by whatever the hell was going on in this studio.

_ “I know Mr. Lawrence always swore you had to be something sent from hell to test his patience… but this is just kinda ridiculous…”  _ August muttered, more staring at the horns then Wally.

“Oh Jesus the ink thing talked!” Wally blurted out in pure surprise when August spoke. The ink being taking mild offence to the red haired man’s lack of tact at the moment.

_ “Hey…”  _

Before anything else could be spoken between everyone, the sound of someone screaming as well as the sound of loud crashes, with the sound of heavy machinery accompanying it. Freezing up and quietly turning towards where the noise was coming from, Lacie being the first one to recognize the noise sounding like one of the attractions that she would work on.

In the doorway, barreling into the room were three men racing as fast as their legs could take them. The instant the group saw them light bulbs went off in almost everyone's heads on who the three were… but the reunion would have to wait as what appeared to be a large mechanical arm that had three carousel carts attached to it crashed through the room. 

It was almost instant slow motion for everyone as the carts crashed through the wood with the force only a machine could do. Allison, Susie and Wally all ducked for cover as large amounts of debris flew into the room. 

Shawn tripped and fell forward, missing more jagged debris but getting a good hit on the back of his left shoulder.

Thomas jumped to the side, narrowly dodging the cart as it crashed through and weaved his way, as best he could, away from the mechanical monstrosity.

Lacie was frozen in shock as she recognized both the cart as well as said mechanical attraction it was attached to… how could she forget her bosses tomb after all? Though she was thankfully pulled out of the way by Grant.

Sammy however wasn’t paying to much attention and didn’t seem to get the memo to get down, though Norman seemed to be aware enough for the both of them. Grabbing Sammy, but realizing he couldn’t get them out of the way in time, turned around and practically threw the music director as well as himself down to the ground. Sammy hit the ground hard first… Norman slamming down right behind after practically shielding the music director from the debris.

As soon as a few more carts passed through, leaving a large gaping opening and large amounts of broken debris lying around, some even having the misfortune of hitting the few people and causing some more open wounds… though August probably had the worst as a large chunk went straight into his ink body and out the other end.

“August!” Lacie screamed, as soon as the apparently moving ride passed. She watched as the trombonist collapsed to the ground and turned into a large puddle of ink, leaving only the wooden board that impaled him on the ground.

While Lacie was freaking out once again and the others were scrambling to get back up, Sammy found himself having trouble getting up from under Norman.

“Norman… Norman get off!” Sammy growled, sure he was confused and completely surprised for a moment on who had pushed him down, but one glance was all he needed to know who it was and sure he was happy to see the projectionist again but this was uncomfortable. Sammy tried to push the projectionist off slightly, hoping it would get Norman to take the hint and move off him so they could both stand up… but Norman didn’t move an inch and… and his face remained slightly turned away from the music director. Sammy was starting to get worried now. It only got worse when the blond heard screaming behind him. Finally getting Norman off, Sammy’s eyes widened when he saw debris sticking out of Norman’s back and through a few vital areas… the back of his neck being one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna try to work on this and update this as much as possible, mostly because I've been having a few interesting ideas since Chapter 4's release that don't fit in with my already established Drabble series. I'll also update Tags when things pop up.


End file.
